Certain Keys on Keyboard not working

[KoRWraith]

OK, here's what happened:

My friend spilt some tea on her Macbook keyboard but dried it up almost straight away. The problem is that some of the keys the tea landed on have now stopped working - specifically delete, both shift keys (although she swears only one was hit by the tea), and enter. This is particularly annoying as her OSX login name has an underscore in it - meaning that at this moment in time she is unable to log in, rendering her macbook useless!

She's removed the offending keys from the keyboard to see if there was any tea residue underneath, but everything seems fine.

The only thing I can think of is to plug in an external USB keyboard and use that to login, but she doesn't live near any computer stores and needs this problem fixed ASAP so that she can continue/retrieve her schoolwork.

My questions are as follows:

Is there any way to get past the login in the current state, e.g. an alternative way to input an underscore, or boot disc that will let her access the files on the hard drive, a default login that doesn't contain an underscore - anything?

Is there any way to fix the offending keys without replacing the entire keyboard? And if not, does the macbook have to be sent to Apple or is keyboard replacement a process that you can do yourself?

I think that's about it...to summarise: essential keys not working, can't log in. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[siurpeeman]

she can connect it to another mac via firewire (not sure about usb) and start up her macbook while pressing "t" on startup. it'll allow the macbook to act as an external firewire drive, which the other mac can access. i hope this helps (and i hope she has access to another mac). :0

 

[xUKHCx]

Is it her log in name or passowrd that contains the underscore. If it is her password then she can change it by using the install discs that came with her computer to something that she can actually type. To do this insert the disc and hold down C (assuming C works) and go through the welcome screen and in the menu bar there are some options in one of the menus there is the option to reset password.

 

[Langille]

Or if worse came to worse, she could plug in an external usb keyboard in the mean time.

Good luck to her in getting the keyboard fixed.

 

[KoRWraith]

Is it her log in name or passowrd that contains the underscore. If it is her password then she can change it by using the install discs that came with her computer to something that she can actually type. To do this insert the disc and hold down C (assuming C works) and go through the welcome screen and in the menu bar there are some options in one of the menus there is the option to reset password.

I'm afraid it's her username.