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Changed Short Name In 10.6, Password Rejected

N

nicholasdalton

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 18, 2009
5
0
I made a really dumb mistake [i think]

My short user name was "nic"
I wanted it to be a capital. So "Nic"

I'm OCD on things like this >.<" I couldn't help myself.
[I'm one of those people that hasn't go a single file out of place and whose iTunes library is perfect]

I Went to System Prefs > Accounts > Right Click on the account in question
And changed short name to "Nic"
HOWEVER, I left the home directory as /users/nic thinking it wouldn't matter as it was only a case change.

Changing my mind I decided to go back and make it users/Nic
Only when I go to unlock to make changes my password is not accepted.
My password isn't accepted on the machine as far as I know.
I am now too afraid to turn the mini off incase I can't log in!

Any ideas ?

Running 10.6 by the way.
 
Try putting the Snow Leopard disc in, and restarting from it by holding down "C" while turning on the computer. After it boots up, instead of continuing the installation, go to the Utilities folder in the menu bar at the top of the screen. From here, choose "Reset Password". Select your user account and type in a new password. Now, restart the computer and boot into Mac OS X.

See if this works. :)
 
ziggyonice said:
Try putting the Snow Leopard disc in, and restarting from it by holding down "C" while turning on the computer. After it boots up, instead of continuing the installation, go to the Utilities folder in the menu bar at the top of the screen. From here, choose "Reset Password". Select your user account and type in a new password. Now, restart the computer and boot into Mac OS X.

See if this works. :)
Click to expand...

Problem, I left the SL disc at work =/
I only have access to Leopard Disc that came with my mini.
Also I'm currently in the middle of exams so if this doesn't work and i am locked out I don't have access to anything which is seriously going to stuff me up.

At the moment I am hoping the power doesn't go out or something =/
Plus my external drive which i was using with time machine died a few weeks back if only I still had it I might be able to restore or something =/
 
You don't necessarily use the Snow Leopard disc. As long as you use a Mac OS X disc (like the Snow Leopard one, or one of the discs with the big "X" on the front), you'd be fine.

You could also use the grey discs that came with the computer, although those discs are specific to the model of computer. Meaning that, if you can't find the grey discs that came with your computer, but you have the grey discs that came with your Mac mini, that won't work.

You either need a Mac OS X disc (either Snow Leopard or one of the discs with the big "X" on the front), or the discs that came with your computer.
 
Have you logged out and in yet? If so, look in your Users folder. Did it create another user?

Also, have you tried renaming your user back to the old name?

This thread helped me with a similar problem, but I wasn't having password issues. Part of the suggestion within this thread involves logging in/out of your account, and I know you're hesitant to do that. Just wanted to give you a bit of something to work with. I followed the suggestion under "to get your files back".

Here it is: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/274450/

I hope you get it sorted out.

God bless. =]

EDIT:
By the way, since you haven't done it yet, I would not recommend changing the name inside of your users folder. If you do, you should follow these instructions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428?viewlocale=en_US
 
Thanks for your time but I had a power outage would, you believe it.

Turned the machine on, nearly had a heart attack.
But it turned good it accpeted my password and is still lowercase "nic"

So im just not going to touch anything.

thanks again
 
Password accepted and then not accepted

Snow Leopard somehow strangely won't accept my password. I definitely know it and if I go to "System Preferences -> Users -> Change Password", I can easily change it (the old one is accepted), but if I try to do anything that opens up a dialog that requires my credentials, my password isn't accepted.

Any clues?
 
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