Did a time machine restore, password doesn't work, wtf

Ok, so my 2008 MBP died on me last thursday, after much consideration I decided to get a mac mini because I had a bunch of stuff I didn't backup manually, so I depended on my time machine backup. This fact heavily influenced my decision to get another mac instead of checking out PC options.

Today I get my new mini all set up, do the time machine restore and when I try to log in to my account it says it's the wrong password, which I'm 100% sure is in fact the right password, even the question confirms it.

I did some poking around and this doesn't seem to be such a rare problem but even so, I don't know what's the best way to fix it. I've read about resetting it with a USB install stick, but my Mini didn't come with any (thanks Apple!), DVD install disk is obviously out of the question because it doesn't have a DVD drive.

My current OSX version is 10.8.1 , my old MBP was running 10.6.

Please help! I really need to get to those files.

Thanks in advance.

Ok, managed to reset it it by restarting and pressing cmd + r , then went into utilities, console, reset pasword.

Bad news, the time machine restore didn't work very well, most of the files are not there, nor the settings, preferences, desktop wallpaper, dock preferences, etc.

Ill try to do a fresh install tommorow to see if that helps.

Did the fresh install but instead of trying to restore from the beginning, I went through the process like I didn't have a backup and then, after everything was working properly, I used Migration Assistant to restore from my TM backup, it worked like a charm.

The only downside is that it took a really long time to download the OSX installer, I was going to make a bootable USB drive but for some reason I can't download it from the App store.

I hope this helps anyone having similar problems.

Cheers.