Security gone awry

November 30, 2006 8:47 PM

Any hope of bypassing Imac password?

I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this but, if anyone has suggestions it'd be appreciated.

A friend works at a (disorganized) church that I've done some PC work for. He called me up and said the new pastor wants to use the (sole!) Imac the place has, it's one of those older CRT shaped neonish units, prolly about 2002. Only thing is it is password protected and no one has a clue what that might be, nor will they know where any software would be. I have not worked with Macs, but I assume the only hope is to find an OS copy that won't be too much for it, and boot/load from that. Is that even possible for Macs, or do they have a big doorstop now?

If this would work where would one track down an older Mac OS?

posted by edgeways to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Just about any OSX version will work on one of these but 10.3.x would probably be ideal. 10.2.8 was the first OK OSX release but it still had issues.
posted by doctor_negative at 9:02 PM on November 30, 2006

I'm pretty sure the only way is to boot with the system CD. Insert it and hold "c" when you power it on.
posted by cmiller at 9:11 PM on November 30, 2006

What operating system does it already have? OS 9 or less? OS X?

What type of password are you trying to bypass? Is it a login/screen saver password? Or is it an OpenFirmware password (one you get immediately after the computer is turned on, before the OS boots)?
posted by sbutler at 9:12 PM on November 30, 2006

If you can locate a CD of OS X and boot from that, there is a utility to reset the password. YMMV.
posted by bach at 9:13 PM on November 30, 2006

Does it appear before or after the computer boots? If it's before, then the computer has the Open Firmware password set. The official way to reset it is to boot the computer with a different amount of memory.

If you're lucky, it's a slot-loading iMac, and the memory is under a little door round the back underneath the computer. If it has a tray-loading CD drive, it's an older model, and you have to open it right up to get at the memory.
posted by cillit bang at 9:23 PM on November 30, 2006

This sounds like a job for the "Genius Bar".
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:58 PM on November 30, 2006

I don't have much to add in terms of dealing with the password, but, as the very recent owner of a Ruby iMac G3 DV, I highly recommend 10.4 over any other version of Mac OS X. It installs and runs much faster, and because it is current, allows for the greatest possibility of current other software to run.
posted by birdsquared at 10:11 PM on November 30, 2006

Is that even possible for Macs...?

Yes. If you have an install CD and you're willing to lose whatever is currently on the computer, then you're fine.

where would one track down an older Mac OS?

EBay.
posted by cribcage at 3:44 AM on December 1, 2006

Even if you had to installa new OS you wouldn't lose anything on the computer. It is MAC OS not WINDOWS. It is extremely easy to upgrade or reinstall the OS without losing any data. If you do choose to reinstall Mac OSX choose the Archive and Install option during the installation process.
posted by Gungho at 4:27 AM on December 1, 2006

as bach said, there is a utility in one of the menus of the Mac OS X installer that allows you to reset the password for user accounts. See this article for detailed instructions. Start at the section titled "Resetting the original administrator account password."
posted by dmo at 5:47 AM on December 1, 2006

thanks all, I'll forward this on, and if I get updates on success, I'll follow up and mark answers. Your help is much appreciated.
posted by edgeways at 1:23 PM on December 1, 2006