Can't Remember Password

Haberdasher · Jul 29, 2003

Ok...I'm in a string of really "good happenings" today, and right as I'm about to finish being on a roll, I have to go and forget my system password.

Long story short and right to the problem...this is on my second internal drive, which I never boot up from, so I've forgotten the administrator password to change things. Is there any way to figure it out? This is only the password to change things...I can log in, and I have complete access to my first drive.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

dynamicd · Jul 29, 2003

Putting in the the OSX disc and then restarting while holding the c key should prompt a message allowing you to change all passwords. That should work.

Mr. Anderson · Jul 29, 2003

Originally posted by dynamicd
Putting in the the OSX disc and then restarting while holding the c key should prompt a message allowing you to change all passwords. That should work.

Damn that's a nice one to remember. I'll keep that handy in the future. But that's also a huge flaw in the system, isn't it?

D

rainman::|:| · Jul 29, 2003

Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
Damn that's a nice one to remember. I'll keep that handy in the future. But that's also a huge flaw in the system, isn't it?

D

One would think. But consider, if there weren't a way to do this, a 3rd party would come along, and then it would be a *serious* vulnerability, better that Apple should have control. But they should make it so that you need *the* original CD that came with the computer--

pnw

GeeYouEye · Jul 29, 2003

Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
Damn that's a nice one to remember. I'll keep that handy in the future. But that's also a huge flaw in the system, isn't it?

D

Not really... it means you have to have physical access to the machine in order to do it. Plus there's always a firmware password, which is practically untouchable.

zimv20 · Jul 29, 2003

Re: Can't Remember Password

Originally posted by Haberdasher

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

did you try "tkl#4d$k9"?

what passwords _have_ you tried?

Haberdasher · Jul 29, 2003

Re: Re: Can't Remember Password

Originally posted by zimv20
did you try "tkl#4d$k9"?

what passwords _have_ you tried?

Certainly not that. Who uses pound signs anymore? It's more of a 0%^io with a good old home row a;lsdfj for good measure.

zimv20 · Jul 29, 2003

Re: Re: Re: Can't Remember Password

Originally posted by Haberdasher
Certainly not that. Who uses pound signs anymore?

well that's my point. maybe it's so old that it has the #!

(i'm glad _someone_ found it amusing

Nermal · Jul 30, 2003

It amuses me when I see people call the # a pound sign. In my (most?) countries they are:

# Hash
£ Pound

Don't mind me, just getting a bit off topic

irmongoose · Jul 30, 2003

Originally posted by Nermal
It amuses me when I see people call the # a pound sign. In my (most?) countries they are:

# Hash
£ Pound

Don't mind me, just getting a bit off topic

In Japan it's called the 'Sharp' sign.

Oh, about the password reset... just by booting to the CD won't help. Once you do, you have to go to the Apple menu and select 'Reset Password'.

irmongoose

maradong · Jul 30, 2003

# = sharp
£ = pound
IMO. ;-)

Haberdasher · Jul 30, 2003

Originally posted by Nermal
It amuses me when I see people call the # a pound sign. In my (most?) countries they are:

# Hash
£ Pound

Don't mind me, just getting a bit off topic

Well, I'm an ignorant American, and I don't know about foreign keyboards, but on my standard American one, there is no obvious key combination to produce a pound sign...I'm sure someone will tell me very quickly how to make one, though.

amnesiac1984 · Jul 30, 2003

Originally posted by Haberdasher
Well, I'm an ignorant American, and I don't know about foreign keyboards, but on my standard American one, there is no obvious key combination to produce a pound sign...I'm sure someone will tell me very quickly how to make one, though.

I'm guessing its alt 3 as that is the way us UK ppl make # signs where the £ is visible on above the 3 key. As for # being sharp thats also what it means in musical notation. F# Fb or just F for example.

Haberdasher · Jul 30, 2003

Originally posted by amnesiac1984
I'm guessing its alt 3 as that is the way us UK ppl make # signs where the £ is visible on above the 3 key. As for # being sharp thats also what it means in musical notation. F# Fb or just F for example.

I should have guessed about the whole musical sharp thing.

Oh, and you're right. £££

Nermal · Jul 30, 2003

Holding Alt/Option as you go through the numbers gives you all sorts of neat stuff

¡£¢?§¶ªº?

Edit: Except a couple of those didn't come through and get changed to a question mark. They were the infinity symbol, and the "does not equal" symbol. By the way, that first one is not a lowercase I, it's an upside down !

irmongoose · Jul 30, 2003

Originally posted by Nermal
Holding Alt/Option as you go through the numbers gives you all sorts of neat stuff

Then there's the whole option+shift thing....

???°·´?Á¨Ø?ÅÍÎÏ?ÓÔ?ÒÚ¸?Ç??Â¯?

irmongoose

kray · Jul 30, 2003

Originally posted by dynamicd
Putting in the the OSX disc and then restarting while holding the c key should prompt a message allowing you to change all passwords. That should work.

Or... Just boot into single user mode (hold down the cntrl-s while rebooting) This will drop you into single user mode. It will skip the graphics stuff and you will be at a root prompt. From there you can use the comand # 'passwd username' to change any users password

Haberdasher · Jul 30, 2003

Originally posted by kray
Or... Just boot into single user mode (hold down the cntrl-s while rebooting) This will drop you into single user mode. It will skip the graphics stuff and you will be at a root prompt. From there you can use the comand # 'passwd username' to change any users password

Elaborate on this...sounds sneaky.

kray · Aug 1, 2003

Originally posted by Haberdasher
Elaborate on this...sounds sneaky.

Not at all sneaky. This owes to osx's bsd roots. In freebsd (or just about any other 'nix, I can think of), you boot into single user mode from the boot prompt by typing 'boot -s', osx gives you this option with the key combination of 'apple- or propellar- (or whatever that key is called) s.

Any UNIX machine can boot into single user mode (which by definition gives you root access). It is for this reason that the first rule of security is to control physical access to the machine.

Haberdasher · Aug 1, 2003

Originally posted by kray
Not at all sneaky. This owes to osx's bsd roots. In freebsd (or just about any other 'nix, I can think of), you boot into single user mode from the boot prompt by typing 'boot -s', osx gives you this option with the key combination of 'apple- or propellar- (or whatever that key is called) s.

Any UNIX machine can boot into single user mode (which by definition gives you root access). It is for this reason that the first rule of security is to control physical access to the machine.

Ok, I can boot into single user mode, and I know the smallest bit about navigating folders and listing stuff in the terminal, so i thought it was a pretty neat feature. When I try to get the "passwd" function to work though, I'm having some trouble understanding it.

I realize you're supposed to use passwd User Name, but then it give me this list of options...I then typed passwd [location of password file] [new password], but I don't think it worked. Am I supposed to put something else in the last field? Am I supposed to have 3 fields like the confusing help diagram in the terminal suggests?

Any help?

TEG · Aug 1, 2003

Personally

# = Pound Key (On Phone), Sharp (When Doing Music), Number Sign (Most Other Times)
£ = British Pound, or Dollar Pound

Also Don't Forget
$ = Dollar Sign (For Many), Money Sign (For Others)
Don't even make me drag out the arguments over 2 lines or 1.

& = Ampersand (Most Americans Don't know that), And Sign (What Most Americans call it)

* = Astrisk (Normal Name), Star (With Computers)

Any Others

TEG

kray · Aug 1, 2003

Originally posted by Haberdasher
I realize you're supposed to use passwd User Name,

from the root promt '#' you would type 'passwd user_name'

then you will be asked for a new password, so type 'new_password'

then you will be asked to confirm the new password, so type it again. If you didn't make any typos and the two passwords match. You will get the message that your password has been changed... that's it. There should not be any junk about location fo password files.

but then it give me this list of options...I then typed passwd [location of password file] [new password], but I don't think it worked. Am I supposed to put something else in the last field? Am I supposed to have 3 fields like the confusing help diagram in the terminal suggests?

The only other thing that I can think of is that you may need to mount a partition or two with the comand 'mount' e.g. 'mount /etc'

Any help?

It was quite a while ago that I helped someone else do this (they forgot their password too) and I seem to remember that there was a message or two as you boot into single user mode. Just follow the directions. Single user mode on osx may not automatically mount all the needed partitions (explanation... if the command 'passwd' is not located on the mount point that osx brings up by itself in single user mode, then you will have to mount it yourself, otherwise the command will not be understood by the system)...

After you pull this off check out a unix for osx book. Oreilly probably published a few...

favedave · Aug 2, 2003

of course if OS X were a GOOD OS

Of course, if OS X were an actual decent OS you would never have to use a password at all.

Remember the good old days? Before the Mac OS became a shell on top of Unix?

I would like to turn my computer on and use it without EVER having to:

log in
go to a CLI.

OS X is a giant step backwards in useability. But everyone keeps telling me it's necessary for Apple to survive.

I just want to turn my computer on and use it and never log in as long as I live

But Apple - who control the hardware AND the software - decided to go to a third party outdated primitive OS like Unix for their modern computers.

This is a really bad sign...what's next - an advance to punch cards?

irmongoose · Aug 2, 2003

Re: of course if OS X were a GOOD OS

Originally posted by favedave
Of course, if OS X were an actual decent OS you would never have to use a password at all.

Remember the good old days? Before the Mac OS became a shell on top of Unix?

I would like to turn my computer on and use it without EVER having to:

log in
go to a CLI.

OS X is a giant step backwards in useability. But everyone keeps telling me it's necessary for Apple to survive.

I just want to turn my computer on and use it and never log in as long as I live

But Apple - who control the hardware AND the software - decided to go to a third party outdated primitive OS like Unix for their modern computers.

This is a really bad sign...what's next - an advance to punch cards?

In the System Preferences>Users panel, you could set it to automatically login to a specific account...

And the good old days with no passwords are gone because viruses and hackers are becoming more and more obnoxious so that unless you don't have a secure system like OS X which requires you to type in a password at only critical moments and no more, it would be like leaving the front door open in a gangster neighborhood.

irmongoose

Haberdasher · Aug 2, 2003

Re: Re: of course if OS X were a GOOD OS

Originally posted by irmongoose
In the System Preferences>Users panel, you could set it to automatically login to a specific account...

And the good old days with no passwords are gone because viruses and hackers are becoming more and more obnoxious so that unless you don't have a secure system like OS X which requires you to type in a password at only critical moments and no more, it would be like leaving the front door open in a gangster neighborhood.

irmongoose

Exactly. Besides, the password I had to fix was not a login password, as I have automated login like was mentioned above. This was an administrator password I don't use much, but protects my computer if someone I didn't want changing things came in and started doing so.

Can't Remember Password

macrumors regular

macrumors 6502

Moderator emeritus

macrumors 603

macrumors 68000

macrumors 601

macrumors regular

macrumors 601

Moderator

macrumors 68030

macrumors 65816

macrumors regular

macrumors 6502a

macrumors regular

Moderator

macrumors 68030

macrumors newbie

macrumors regular

macrumors newbie

macrumors regular

macrumors 604

macrumors newbie

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68030

macrumors regular

Our Staff