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Need booting from CD Help

T

trey5498

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 16, 2008
191
0
I have a Intel Mac mini that has 10.5 OS X installed on it. This was used by a disgruntled employee that was fire and of course he wont give the passwords. As he has vital info on this Mac, I need to change the passwords. I know how to do that. I thought I knew how to boot it off the CD.

I tried holding down the "C" button when starting it up and nothing.
I tried to reset the firmware by holding down the option+command+P+R and nothing and option+command+F+O. The Mac ignored every single keyboard command and just went to the login screen. I know the keyboard works as I can type in a password (of course wrong ones).

What do I do?
 
trey5498 said:
I have a Intel Mac mini that has 10.5 OS X installed on it. This was used by a disgruntled employee that was fire and of course he wont give the passwords. As he has vital info on this Mac, I need to change the passwords. I know how to do that. I thought I knew how to boot it off the CD.

I tried holding down the "C" button when starting it up and nothing.
I tried to reset the firmware by holding down the option+command+P+R and nothing and option+command+F+O. The Mac ignored every single keyboard command and just went to the login screen. I know the keyboard works as I can type in a password (of course wrong ones).

What do I do?
Click to expand...

Insert the Disc then Power off the computer, When you go to restart hold down the "OPTION" key this should allow you to select to boot off of CD or HD, then just choose CD and your all set.
 
So the C button is for Power PC ?? This is where my Mac Knowledge kinda Fades in and out lol
 
No it shouldn't have mattered wether you used c or option but it seems better results are yielded with option. By the way did option work for you?
 
I am in a different location at the moment. I will know better on monday. However if that doesnt work, how would I solve the issue?
 
You would have use an external hard drive to make a disk image back up of the dvd onto the HD and boot from the HD. This can be accomplished by mounting the empty HD, then inserting your OS DVD. Open Disk Uitility. Then Restore the DVD to the HD. This will copy everything from the DVD to the HD. Thus you will be able to boot off of the HD which is the same thing as the DVD.
 
There could also be a firmware password on the machine. This will prevent just about any attempt to boot the machine from anything except the internal disc. Booting from CD/DVD or network are disabled. Target disc mode is disabled along with single-user mode, verbose-mode, safe boot, startup manager, PRAM reset.

There are ways around this, providing you have physical access to the machine.
 
I have the physical address (Mac address). How do i get around it?
 
Poeben said:
There could also be a firmware password on the machine. This will prevent just about any attempt to boot the machine from anything except the internal disc. Booting from CD/DVD or network are disabled. Target disc mode is disabled along with single-user mode, verbose-mode, safe boot, startup manager, PRAM reset.

There are ways around this, providing you have physical access to the machine.
Click to expand...

I think he means you can physically touch the computer.
 
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