Help - need to know if this will work

Lec the Vec said:

Someone stole my computer and I managed to get it back. The computer has a new password, and I'm in an area that doesn't have an Apple Store. I looked online and found tips for resetting the password which don't require a disk, which I don't have- it's in the States.

Anyway, the tips are:
1. Hold Down Apple+S while booting computer
2. Type: sh /etc/rc
3. Type: passwd root (if that doesn’t work try admin or administrator instead of root)
4. Enter in new password and confirm
5. Type: reboot

Click to expand...

Try this:

1. Cmd-s (aka 'Apple+s') when powering on computer and hold down until you get into single user mode.

2. fsck -fy

3. mount -uw /

4. launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist

5. Try 'passwd <your username>'

6. If no dice, then try this instead: 'dscl . -passwd /Users/<your username> <newpassword>' (where <your username> would be replaced by your actual username and <newpassword> would be replaced with the actual new password)

7. reboot

These steps should work for both Leopard and Snow Leopard, I think.

The way I'm reading this is it's your user account that had its password changed, so you'd need to reset it this way rather than root's password as it's not very common for anyone to directly login into OS X as root. 99% of people who needs root access on OS X would do so via sudo which requires your admin user's password.

Glad to hear you had a happy ending with your Mac.