forgotten login password

[benfilan]

Hi all, hoping someone will be able to help...

My sister, being the brain that she is, has forgotten the password for her macbook. I was wondering if theres a way to reset it or change it without having to reinstall OS X? Besides that, the disks aren't in the box, and god knows where they are now

thanks guys!

 

[yeroen]

Hi all, hoping someone will be able to help...

My sister, being the brain that she is, has forgotten the password for her macbook. I was wondering if theres a way to reset it or change it without having to reinstall OS X? Besides that, the disks aren't in the box, and god knows where they are now

thanks guys!

YOU DON'T NEED TO REINSTALL THE OS!

Boot into single user mode by holding down -S at startup, then type:

passwd your sisters account name


at the prompt. This will prompt you for a new password. Once this is reset, reboot the machine normally by simply typing

reboot

which will bring the system back up in multiuser mode with the graphical login screen, and you're done.

 

[SrWebDeveloper]

The likely AppleCare answer:

Load the Mac OS X install disk.

Once you have an install disk in hand, double click on the Install Mac OS icon and you'll get a window with a big graphic (this is one place where Apple isn't subtle!) and a restart button. Click on it, and your Mac will restart and go straight to the install process.

But don't install the OS again! Just click through windows far enough until you get the regular set of choices on the menu bar. One of those menus is Utilities and one of the choices on that menu is Reset Password....

My answer:

Sell your sister into slavery, reformat the MBP and take over use of the computer as you're the obvious brain in the family and deserve it more than she does. There should be a minimum IQ for Apple ownership if you ask me.

-jim

ps: Um, I am extremely kidding!!! We all lose passwords - it's a basic human genetic condition, so it's cool and hope (seriously) this helps. I won't post the hacker solution here, you can Google that on your own.

 

[benfilan]

The likely AppleCare answer:





My answer:

Sell your sister into slavery, reformat the MBP and take over use of the computer as you're the obvious brain in the family and deserve it more than she does. There should be a minimum IQ for Apple ownership if you ask me.

-jim

ps: Um, I am extremely kidding!!! We all lose passwords - it's a basic human genetic condition, so it's cool and hope (seriously) this helps. I won't post the hacker solution here, you can Google that on your own.

well i cut off her thumb as punishment, so hopefully she won't do it again

 

[benfilan]

YOU DON'T NEED TO REINSTALL THE OS!

Boot into single user mode by holding down -S at startup, then type:

passwd your sisters account name


at the prompt. This will prompt you for a new password. Once this is reset, reboot the machine normally by simply typing

reboot

which will bring the system back up in multiuser mode with the graphical login screen, and you're done.

thanks, done this, but when I get back to the login screen after the reboot, and enter the new password, i get a message saying "you could not be logged in at this time"

 

[andy.barron]

Hi.

It may be worthwhile for the future enabling the root user, or setting yourself up as an admin user to help out with any future such disasters, especially if her user becomes corrupt...

 

[SrWebDeveloper]

A quick comment on single user mode (root access bypassing admin login):

I didn't suggest it because it's a vulnerability in the sense anyone could do this on anyone's Mac running OS X. This mode should require a login, but it doesn't, and newbies trying this out might enter the wrong command and cause destruction. Or someone in a network situation could get a password hash, etc., etc., etc. It's also not as friendly as the GUI also which matters to newbies not interested in special boot sequences. Easy? Yes. The right thing to advise? Maybe not.

So I want to comment that I'm hesitant to offer advice with those circumstances on a PUBLIC forum, which is why I provided the answer I did.

Just for the record.

Here's an article on single user mode everyone should read:

http://www.securemac.com/macosxsingleuser.php

-jim

 

[yeroen]

thanks, done this, but when I get back to the login screen after the reboot, and enter the new password, i get a message saying "you could not be logged in at this time"

Is she using FileVault protection on her home directory? Then updating tokens via 'passwd' may not be enough to sync up the rest of her environment.

An similar approach towards fixing this would be to

1)enable root
2)login in the login GUI as root which will give you the standard OS X desktop
3) Once logged in as root, update your sister's account information using the System Preferences GUI as you normally would. This should sync everything up and allow her to login again normally.

This is outlined here:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20001217230925152