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dtfgator

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 28, 2009
6
0
Hi everyone.

I know this is going to seem like a stupid request, but I need to "Hack" my schools computers.

I am part to the tech club at my school, and we have a older iBook G4 running Tiger. The school changed their admin password 2 years ago (only a few "Directors" know it, including the retired principal and the people in the tech office). We need to gain access to it as we are going to modify it (make the structure tougher, attach it to the back of a monitor, etc) and give it away to charity.

This computer will be going to the kids section at Horizons, and will be pre-programmed with a few games and OpenOffice so they can do their homework.

For obvious reasons, including managing parental controls (Blocking stuff thats inappropriate), we must log in.


So, most of you are going to say "Boot from a Mac CD and reset it" or "go into Single user mode (Shell) and create a new account". These would work on any normal computer, but they have added a Open Firmware password. On top of this, they have managed to somehow stop us from booting from a CD. :mad:

We have already talked to them on multiple occasions, and our teacher gave the tech people a phone call. At first they claimed to not remember it from 2 years ago / didn't right it down, but now they just won't let us have it. They even refused to come punch it in for us.

So, heres the big question : Is their any way to Recover the password? This would be the easier thing to do.

If all else fails, we are going to buy a new HDD and swap the old one out, but we figured it was worth a try.

P.S: We do have access to a student account with minimal Parental Controls. (We have terminal access).

Thanks!

-D
 
Here's some info I found on force-resetting an Open-Firmware password.
Force Removing Password Protection
  1. Add or remove DIMMs to change the total amount of RAM in the computer.
  2. Then, the PRAM must be reset 3 times. (Command + Option + P + R).

If that works you should be able to boot to CD and reset the password. Hope that works for you.
 
darth.titan is correct except only need to rest the pram once after changing the amount of ram in the system to disable the firmware password
 
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