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Recovering an Admin password

P

Philming

macrumors member
Original poster
Hi all !
I need to find a way to recover the Admin password on a Leopard based machine. I'm working on it with admin privileges. It's important that I do not reset it. Just recovery would be great; Is there a way?
Thanx and best regards,
 
Why do you need to recover it and not just be able to reset it? On the face of it your request seems highly suspicious.
 
Ok, Format the hard drive, Put a Linux Distro in the drive and reboot.....(Oh wait no thats wrong sorry - thats the advice for Windows users..)

seriously, I am not sure you can recover the password. Resetting it is a fairly simple task, but Ive never had to recover.

Why can you not reset it? (may help in advising you what to do)
 
Long story short, the machine is shared among different persons, including me, sharing the same account. And for the time being, my co-workers are on vacation. I dont want to hastle them by calling them up, so I'm trying to find a way myself. Plus so I'll know how it's done in the future.
 
Philming said:
Long story short, the machine is shared among different persons, including me, sharing the same account. And for the time being, my co-workers are on vacation. I dont want to hastle them by calling them up, so I'm trying to find a way myself. Plus so I'll know how it's done in the future.
Click to expand...

a shared work computer? turn the keyboard around. 70% chance the password is written down there.

aside of that i think you're out of luck.
 
I dont really get this thing with the "wrong idea". I mean, should I actually be having one, I guess that'd be my business wouldn't it be?
So anyway, there's absolutely nothing malicious in my intentions, just looking for ways to get things done by myself, thanx all the same.
 
We're suspicious that it isn't just your business. We're suspicious that you're trying to figure out the password on someone else's computer so you can always have access to it without their knowledge. It's nothing personal against you, it's just that this is a very dubious sounding thing you're asking. I'm pretty sure it's not possible anyway.
 
Typically "recovering password" requests are made by newbies under suspicious manners with all kinds of weak excuses.

Guess what? There is no way to "recover" password. Period.
 
As far as I know, there is no possible way to find the admin password. There are a few ways of changing it though.
 
No excuse from my part. I'm being asked the reason why, I just tell it.
Oh sorry, I forgot to mention. I must be an Iraki terrorist, that's why I ask.
End of discussion for me.
 
You can't recover a password - it's stored in a non-reversible encrypted format. You can change it if you are an administrator (obviously) but apart from that you're pretty much stuck
 
I need to no 2

I really want to no how to recover the password without changing it. 😕

Im on my dads mac and it wont let me play WoW!

Preposterous! 😱

ive changed the admin password on many macs but this is not the same situation

he cant no that i changed it 😛

so if there is anyway PLEASE tell me

im not gonna go hack steve jobbs or anything i just wanna play wow lol

thanks 😉
 
funnyfish7 said:
I really want to no how to recover the password without changing it. 😕

Im on my dads mac and it wont let me play WoW!

Preposterous! 😱

ive changed the admin password on many macs but this is not the same situation

he cant no that i changed it 😛

so if there is anyway PLEASE tell me

im not gonna go hack steve jobbs or anything i just wanna play wow lol

thanks 😉
Click to expand...
Maybe you should re-read this whole thread and see if you can get an idea of what answers you'll get.
 
funnyfish7 said:
I really want to no how to recover the password without changing it. 😕

Im on my dads mac and it wont let me play WoW!
Click to expand...

Hah, your situation is the exact reason why admin passwords exist. The admin password exists so that nothing can be done to a person's computer without the owner knowing about it. And your Dad is the owner of that computer. Sorry.

If you get a job to pay for your own computer so that you can play WOW on it whenever you like, depending on what age you are, I'm sure your dad would be thrilled with that idea.
 
Phil A. said:
You can't recover a password - it's stored in a non-reversible encrypted format. You can change it if you are an administrator (obviously) but apart from that you're pretty much stuck
Click to expand...

Bingo.

Linkety to an article.

You can have a program guess every single combination, but you'll be at it for ~100,000 years. On average.
 
Wow. Yet another transparent attempt to gain access to an unauthorized computer.

"Don't want to bother my coworkers"?

It's bad enough you're trying to break in to a computer without knowledge or permission from the owner.

Now you're taking us for fools with a poorly-thought out story. Shame.

And by the way, the word is Iraqi.
 
"...I dont want to hastle them by calling them up...."

Pur-leeeese...even I could do better than that.....😎
 
The sad part is, someone out there probably is lamenting their stolen Mac, while thieves routinely come to this forum, trying to sucker us into helping them break into them. If you share a Mac with people at work and forget the password, there's no shame in calling them and saying, "Hey, I've got to get some work done and forgot the password." And there's certainly no shame in changing the password so you can get work done and telling them the new password when they get back..... unless, of course, it's all a lie!
 
With a stolen mac, I'd robably just reset the pasword or reformat the hard drive alltogother wouldn't I? Some here seem to be so smart...
Thanx - again - to al those who just gave me a simple answer, without feeling the need to be insulting.
 
Philming said:
I'm working on it with admin privileges.
Click to expand...

You shouldn't need the other user's password. If you are already an admin, you can use sudo to escalate your privileges to access files that you might not own.

I guess the question is - What exactly are you trying to do? access a file? run a program? etc...
 
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