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Samantha37

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 30, 2008
2
0
Hi Everyone,

I've upgraded my powerbook G4 (Computer A) to leopard via my mum's powerbook (Computer B) via fire to fire cable. Why? Well the drive on my powerbook is broken and this is how I did it to my imac that doesn't have a DVD drive and it worked perfectly.

I now have the problem of not being able to log in after installation because the user name is more that 8 characters. The problem is - if I cannot log into Computer A how can I 'see' the hard drive of Computer B to reinstall leopard and make changes to the username/password as everyone is suggesting?? Well I can't because cannot get past the password!

I have tried to do as mac have suggested http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306840
but come up with all sorts of errors including one that says:

delete: Invalid Path
<dscl_cmd> DS Error: -14009 (eDSUnknownNodeName)

After I get to the part where I enter the username.

Anyone have any ideas before I take it to the shop?

Thanks so much,
Sam
 

merl1n

macrumors 65816
Mar 30, 2008
1,095
0
New Jersey, USA
Hi Everyone,

I've upgraded my powerbook G4 (Computer A) to leopard via my mum's powerbook (Computer B) via fire to fire cable. Why? Well the drive on my powerbook is broken and this is how I did it to my imac that doesn't have a DVD drive and it worked perfectly.

I now have the problem of not being able to log in after installation because the user name is more that 8 characters. The problem is - if I cannot log into Computer A how can I 'see' the hard drive of Computer B to reinstall leopard and make changes to the username/password as everyone is suggesting?? Well I can't because cannot get past the password!

I have tried to do as mac have suggested http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306840
but come up with all sorts of errors including one that says:

delete: Invalid Path
<dscl_cmd> DS Error: -14009 (eDSUnknownNodeName)

After I get to the part where I enter the username.

Anyone have any ideas before I take it to the shop?

Thanks so much,
Sam

I would do the following.

1. Boot A in firewire Target Disk Mode and connect to B.

2. Backup your important files and data from your home directory (copy your home directory from A to B (somewhere).

3. Install (fresh install) Lepard on A from B.

4. When finished, disconnect firewire cable and boot B creating a new user account and password.

5. Turn on file sharing on B and mount B's disk on A.

6. Open two finder windows side by side:
One with B's disk
One with A's disk

7. On B, navigate to you old home directory and on A, navigate to your new home directory. Make sure you are in the directories themselves and not the level above it.

8. Copy everything from your old home directory (on B) to your new directory (on A).

9. On A, launch Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and type in the following command and then press return. You will be prompted for an admin password (your new one) and substitute your new username (shortname, same name as your home directory folder):

sudo chown -R username:username /Users/username

What this means is "change ownership recursively to user X group X all of the contents of /Users/X directory files.

You will probably have to reinstall some applications after doing a fresh install, but your preferences and support files should be intact.
 

Samantha37

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 30, 2008
2
0
Thanks

Hi,
Thanks. I'm hopeless - have spent whole day and still can't make it work.
I've copied everything to other computer so can still get files. I'll have to take it in.
Sam
 
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