OS X has forgotten my password
May 15, 2007 6:35 AM Subscribe
I put my g4 ibook to sleep yesterday, and when I tried to use it later that evening, it didn't recognize my password. Googling brought up this which seems like it might be on the right track, but i have no real idea. I don't know where my install CDs are, so I can't use the password recovery utility.
Right now, i'm thinking I could take the laptop over to my local mac-specialist and have them reset the password, or I could try and replace my netinfo db. If I go with the latter course, can I just boot up into single-user mode, or do I need to use firewire and remote disc mode or something and access my harddrive from another machine?
Am I entirely wrong and this is just something else? I'm currently writing this from a guest account on the same computer, so it seems everything else is working fine.
Right now, i'm thinking I could take the laptop over to my local mac-specialist and have them reset the password, or I could try and replace my netinfo db. If I go with the latter course, can I just boot up into single-user mode, or do I need to use firewire and remote disc mode or something and access my harddrive from another machine?
Am I entirely wrong and this is just something else? I'm currently writing this from a guest account on the same computer, so it seems everything else is working fine.
If you can't get hold of the install discs, definitely go the dealer route. They shouldn't charge you much and it's a snap to reset the password with the installer cd.
posted by dickyvibe at 7:16 AM on May 15, 2007
posted by dickyvibe at 7:16 AM on May 15, 2007
Best answer: Yeah, if you have the CD, this should take about five minutes to fix and most of that is the time it takes to boot into the disc.
Something I do (and recommend) is to have a second admin account on the computer with a different password. This works for me because I have six levels of password security: the highest level is for the extra account and it's a password used in just three places (and, therefore, one I change very, very rarely and am very likely to remember).
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:47 AM on May 15, 2007
Something I do (and recommend) is to have a second admin account on the computer with a different password. This works for me because I have six levels of password security: the highest level is for the extra account and it's a password used in just three places (and, therefore, one I change very, very rarely and am very likely to remember).
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:47 AM on May 15, 2007
PS: Whatever you do, don't try to replace the Netinfo DB. Danger!
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:48 AM on May 15, 2007
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:48 AM on May 15, 2007
Response by poster: sounds settled then, thanks for the input.
posted by cmyr at 7:56 AM on May 15, 2007
posted by cmyr at 7:56 AM on May 15, 2007
This actually just happened to me today, too, on an intel MacBook Pro.
To recover, I booted into single-user mode (hold Cmd-S on powerup), followed the fsck / mount / /etc/rc instructions in the startup messages. A quick "passwd {username}" at the prompt later and I was back in business.
Still not sure what happened.
posted by deusx at 4:52 PM on May 15, 2007
To recover, I booted into single-user mode (hold Cmd-S on powerup), followed the fsck / mount / /etc/rc instructions in the startup messages. A quick "passwd {username}" at the prompt later and I was back in business.
Still not sure what happened.
posted by deusx at 4:52 PM on May 15, 2007
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I would check something simple like this if you haven't already.
posted by genefinder at 6:42 AM on May 15, 2007