HELP - I've deleted my administrator account by mistake

[MST]

For some reason I decided that tonight was the night to have a bit of a fiiddle around with my iMac which has culminated in me deleting my administrator account [don't even ask], all I want to do is re-install Leopard and start over but it won't even let me do that seeing as I've only got a standard user account

HELP...PLEASE!

 

[r.j.s]

How'd you delete the account? IIRC, OS X will not let you delete an account unless you are an admin - and will never let you delete the only admin account?

Also, how are you trying to install? You should be able to do an erase and install no matter what.

 

[MST]

To be honest I'm really not sure! I've got the OS X install disc in the drive but when I go to install OS X by restarting the system it asks me for the administrator's name and password, yet System Preferences shows only 1 account which is standard.

 

[r.j.s]

Insert the install disc.

Shut down the system.

Turn on the system, holding c until it starts to load.

From there you should be able to erase and install.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Were you following any sort of instructions at the time? I don't think OS X would allow you to delete the only admin account either.

 

[MST]

Thanks for the advice guys, I think I've got this under control now...

 

[madog]

I'm taking a guess, but I imagine they changed their home folder name to something else which can make it appear as though that account has been deleted as it essentially creates a new user with a new home folder with none of the same personal data.

Just throwing that out there (if you can even do that in Leopard anymore).

 

[TEG]

You could always have booted off of the disc, enabled the Root account, restarted, logged in as root, then recreated your Administrator account, or bumped the other account to Admin.

TEG

 

[brand]

enabled the Root account

The first thing I do after a clean install of Mac OS.

 

[BlueRevolution]

... and the first thing I disable after a clean install of Linux. Enabling the root account opens you up to a whole world of hurt. The extra layer of authentication is a very good idea.

 

[TEG]

... and the first thing I disable after a clean install of Linux. Enabling the root account opens you up to a whole world of hurt. The extra layer of authentication is a very good idea.

But you get to control the root account in OSX, including supplying your own password. There have been several times in which having the Root account activated saved my bacon.

TEG