Unrecognized username and password after install & archive

[fascape]

Hello All,
I have a G4 Powerbook that I bought 2005. After it slowed down, I decided to perform a complete install. I backed up all my data on an external harddrive , reinstalled and it worked fine for a week. (My data is not on the external hard drive anymore because I transferred it to the laptop as I had to empty it for another back up project). So in brief, my data is not backed up anymore.

My notebook suddenly crashed, I restarted it but it wouldnt turn on. I then performed archive and install, restarted it, it asked me for my username and password, I entered them, but it didnt take it.

I then changed my password again from utilities, but it still wouldnt take it. I called apple support and they were clueless. The discs I used to perform the installation are the same ones I got with my laptop when I bought it. When I try to change the password in utilities, it would not give me an option to chose username, but only to change the password.

What can I do at this point?

 

[Consultant]

Repair Permissions
Then try reset again

 

[fascape]

I did that, but it didn't work.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

To start in single user mode, hold Command (Apple) + S on startup.

If you don't have enough time or simply want to create an easy, visible admin account, use the following steps. This has been known to work on all versions of Mac OS X.

The initial System Setup wizard that runs when your Macintosh has had a fresh install creates an Administrator account by default. Since that is all that this utility does, we can force the utility to run again and create a brand new account.

1. Enter single user mode (see above). Once in single user mode, check the filesystem and mount the hard drive.

fsck -y

mount -uaw /

2. All we need to do now is remove a flag file from the system

rm -rf /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

3. Now reboot

reboot

Upon reboot, your machine will run through the system setup wizard. Note that if you are trying to be inconspicuous, you may want to turn down the volume or plug in headphones."

You could try this is you just need to create a new Admin account. You may be able to reset passwords in System Preferences in the new Admin account

If you do this, don't set the username to that of an account that you already have or it will be overwritten.

 

[JediMeister]

If you upgraded your computer's OS at some point, and performed the archive and install with the original discs, which probably reverted it to 10.3/10.4? then you kind of shot yourself in the foot. The archive and installation is meant to be performed with the OS closest to the version you had on there, i.e. if you were @ 10.5.6, you should have used your 10.5 retail disc to reinstall and update. Might be a bit of a long shot, but use the upgrade disc to bring yourself up to the latest OS and then try logging in again.