User Login Problems

mpare

Registered
I'm having problems in OS 10.2.8

My account (admin user) wont log in anymore. It seems to be caught in some kind of a infinite loop. (Auto log in is activated) I ran Disk Warior on the machine and it corrected all my disk errors, but I still can't log in in any of the accounts after I start up the Mac.

How can I get in the computer? Can I bypass the log in process?

Any suggestion would be great.

Thanks,

Martin
 
Boot with an OS X Jaguar install disk (on the factory install disks). When the install starts (starting up holding down the c key) and the first install screen comes up, click on the top Finder menu and reset your password.
 
Satcomer said:
Boot with an OS X Jaguar install disk (on the factory install disks). When the install starts (starting up holding down the c key) and the first install screen comes up, click on the top Finder menu and reset your password.


I've got a similar problem, but the Satcomer solution didn't help. I get around 3 seconds of desktop before I'm returned to the login window, which accepts my password and gives me another 3 seconds of desktop, and so on in a loop. Any other ideas?
 
Ok. I am going to suggest some built in utilities but you have to be brave and FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS because the mode you have to go into is sensitive and one wrong move can screw things up worse.

The first thing is to boot into single-user mode. Once the black screen comes up follow these steps:

1. At the prompt type: fsck -y (for 10.3) or fsck -fy (for 10.4). This is a command for file system check that is built into the BSD Unix core.

2. Once the check is finished and says everything is good, type: reboot. This will get you back to a regular boot process.

If this does not help then a reset of the computer nvram might help. This will reset the basic system preference back to a factory default. So follow these steps to get to what is called Open Firmware to reset the nvram.

1. Restart your Mac by holding down the Command button+Option key+the letters O, F. All at the same time. This will bring you into a white screen a command line prompt.
2. Type: reset-nvram (include the - )
3. Press the Return key and this will reset the logic board and PRAM settings.
4. Then type: reset-all
5. Press the Return key and you Mac will reboot with your logic board and PRAM settings reset.

Hopefully one or both of these steps may help. Anything pass that i have no idea. Good luck.
 
Satcomer said:
Ok. I am going to suggest some built in utilities but you have to be brave and FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS because the mode you have to go into is sensitive and one wrong move can screw things up worse.

The first thing is to boot into single-user mode. Once the black screen comes up follow these steps:

1. At the prompt type: fsck -y (for 10.3) or fsck -fy (for 10.4). This is a command for file system check that is built into the BSD Unix core.

2. Once the check is finished and says everything is good, type: reboot. This will get you back to a regular boot process.

If this does not help then a reset of the computer nvram might help. This will reset the basic system preference back to a factory default. So follow these steps to get to what is called Open Firmware to reset the nvram.

1. Restart your Mac by holding down the Command button+Option key+the letters O, F. All at the same time. This will bring you into a white screen a command line prompt.
2. Type: reset-nvram (include the - )
3. Press the Return key and this will reset the logic board and PRAM settings.
4. Then type: reset-all
5. Press the Return key and you Mac will reboot with your logic board and PRAM settings reset.

Hopefully one or both of these steps may help. Anything pass that i have no idea. Good luck.


Thanks for all that. However the OS in question is 10.2.8 - which fsck should I use for that?
 
Well it's been a long time so I believe it would be fsck -y. The minus why is just a flag to say yes to fixes it needs to do. The -f flag is to force it to make the changes.

Now 10.2.8 was known to be a little unstable. You might would want to update that Mac with Panther, cheaply from OWC.
 
I tried every thing you suggested - even found a bunch of overlapping Jpeg files in a Desktop folder in fsck, which I got rid of - I was sure that would do the trick but no luck. Tried nvram too, but no joy there either. Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and reload the OS. Thanks for all your help
 
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