Having problems with my Master Name and Password

Hello everyone,

i have been having alot of problems with my "MASTER NAME AND PASSWORD"
under Groups>Accounts>left task pane shows the "ADMINISTRATOR and Guests Accounts" under the my picture back then use to say ADMIN since i wanted to change the name of the ADMIN. I clicked under the Admin account (ME) and "RIGHT CLICKED IT" and it showed me "ADVANCED SETTINGS" So i clicked it and changed where it said "NAME" and changed my name under the one that is Currently showed in the image below "Nestor Gonzalez" now everytime i want to actually give permission to a software installation it gives me an error because the "NAME IS WRONG NOT THE PASSWORD"
This is really frustrating me because under the left task pane where it shows the images of the accounts it doesnt say ADMIN anymore it says STANDARD.

I am sorry i barely have 2 years with an iMac and i do not know how to make it go back to the "DEFAULT SETTINGS without loosing my DATA."

(IMAC LATE 2010) (SNOW LEOPARD 10.6.8) 500gigs HDD, 4gigs Ram

Thanks so much for your time any moderator i am greatly appreciated with all this hard effort and time you give to people

God Bless!

techound1 said:

This is why the "advanced options" comes with the scary warning that making changes can potentially damage the account.

This should help you create an admin account and then restore admin privileges to your current account: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1278

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Well the problem here is that my imac is with the OSX Snow leopard i dont have leopard its snow leopard so im looking for utilities but it doesnt appear i went to applications and then utilities but that directory ur talking about i dont see it anywhere

Weaselboy said:

Try following the steps here to change your account from standard back to admin.

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Will it help if i make a back up of everything and than save it to my external HDD and then restore back to default settings like it says and then fix the Username and Password? Will it work like that? please guys i really need to install softwares for my school college classes and im going nuts with this stupid master password is effin killing me =,[

Weaselboy said:

You should be able to just run the commands in the article I linked without moving anything to the external drive. Just do it with everything in place.

You should backup first just to be safe.

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Well lets say i make all those things in the time capsule and make my back ups but the thing that im super super scared of is actually opening the imac honestly i really want to do all this things but i really realllyyyyy dont want to... Btw i dont have rams but i do have external drives one tb maybe thats fine but is it fine if i just manage all this without opening the rams and stuff? Right now im in (standard mode) im not in administrator mode i want to go back to administrator mode but i cant recall my name neither password

So is it fune fine if i just do everything without the opening and exchanging the rams? :S

Weaselboy i really thank u for ur help it is truthful indeed helping me alot

Weaselboy said:

Open Terminal app and type in "ls /Users" (without the quotes) and that will show Shared and then your user name.

I'm not clear what you mean by removing RAM. You don't need to do anything with your RAM to fix this. I think what you may have read about is removing RAM on older Macs to reset the firmware password, and that is not the same thing as the user password we are dealing with here.

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Omg so if im on snow leopard idont have to go on SUM mode? And not remove the rams its cause there a link about that... So all this can be done without doing the rams? All this can be done by the terminal or by the cmd + S on the startup screen? WOW OMG IF THATS THE CASE ILL DO IT IN NO TIME!!! I was completely scared to open the imac late 2010 (snow leopard 10.6.8) and remove the rams and change them for the amount idk but i just follow the steps without removing anything? I just follow the steps without removing the rams right? THANK U!!! Ill give it a try and if it works ill post the suffix as resolved and i would completely reply and say it worked

Thank u so much!! Lemme guve it a try!

Weaselboy said:

Open Terminal app and type in "ls /Users" (without the quotes) and that will show Shared and then your user name.

I'm not clear what you mean by removing RAM. You don't need to do anything with your RAM to fix this. I think what you may have read about is removing RAM on older Macs to reset the firmware password, and that is not the same thing as the user password we are dealing with here.

Click to expand...

Hey weaselb

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Weaselboy said:

Open Terminal app and type in "ls /Users" (without the quotes) and that will show Shared and then your user name.

I'm not clear what you mean by removing RAM. You don't need to do anything with your RAM to fix this. I think what you may have read about is removing RAM on older Macs to reset the firmware password, and that is not the same thing as the user password we are dealing with here.

Click to expand...

Hey weaselboy i did everything and it says im in SUM MODE but the bad thing is that, on the black screen i get the SUM locked mode so i think i have to actually upgrade to lion? Or do i need to take out the rams like it says in the tutorial? oh heres some pictures btw

Weaselboy said:

Do not try to take the RAM out. That is for the firmware password, and has nothing to do with your issue.

I don't know what else to tell you to get that account sorted out.

At this point, I think the best thing for you to do is get an external drive and manually move any documents/files you want to keep to that drive, then erase your entire internal drive and reinstall Snow Leopard if you have the install DVD. Then setup a new admin account afterward and manually move your data back.

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Well thank you weaselboy this really helped me alone idk why it said i was locked in sum mode but well i did it all and nothing worked maybe i suck and not good in the terminal but i know my plist was missing and i couldnt run it but anyways im gonna do a full back up upgrade to lion, then upgrade to mountain lion than make the restore thank you ^^

Weaselboy said:

You can go straight from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion with installing Lion first.

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So in this case i just install lion instead of snow leopard?

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Weaselboy said:

You can go straight from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion with installing Lion first.

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Or u meant without installing lion first? Cause i believe it says lion first? Im confused sorry :S

Weaselboy said:

I am so sorry... I meant to type without installing Lion. You can go straight from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion.

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Woooh omg are you serious? Yaaaay than i shall do that this afternoon cant wait thank you thank you!!! >____<