My girlfriend has a G4 PowerPC running 10.4.1.1. She received it from an old roommate years ago and hasn't really used it for much of anything but watching movies or using iTunes occasionally. Today she just got the internet (I know I know) and I was trying to help her with software updates and whatnot, but, of course, you need the admin password to update. She does not have this information and is unable to retrieve it from the previous owner, so my question(s) is/are: How do we fix this? Do I need to do a fresh OS install? If so, where would I get said software? She's not really in the market for a new computer any time soon. If this helps, her hard drive is only about 25 gigs with slightly less than 1 gig of ram. I know her computer is ancient, but it's the only one she has and I want to help her out. Youtube is incredibly choppy and I don't know if that's because she needs the Java update or what. Any advice/suggestions would be lovely and I apologize if there is a similar thread already in existence about this. I just didn't know how to narrow down my search to find what I'm looking for. Thank you.
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Changing password from previous owner...
- Thread starter WoolyBouley
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when you say type 'passwd yourusername' do you mean that verbatim, or am I actually typing in the computer's admin user name?
It would be like:
passwd woolybouley
I just did this on an old iMac I bought. Pain in the butt.
Well, I do not doubt that single-user mode would fix this issue, but since she has a 3rd party wireless Microsoft keyboard, it didn't work. I am torrenting Tiger and will be giving her a fresh install. Thank you for all of your help.
Get a cheap wired one (thrift stores have a few) and then go into single user
type this:
mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone
reboot
this sets up a new account on ALL OSX MACS ( i have done this on a few eMacs i bought in a storage auction, along with my G4 from a estate auction, and an Intel iMac to demonstrate for my schools IT person the "loophole".)
WARNING DO NOT USE THIS ON ANOTHER PERSONS MAC WITHOUT PERMISSION!
You could always do the same, except instead of rm /var/db/.applesetupdone you would do open /Applications/"System Preferences.app" and it will open up System Preferences in a buggy, bizarre GUI that you'll still be able to use to manage the accounts.
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