MacOS – g5 ppc osx 10.5.8 i can’t change administrator password

administratormacospasswordpowerpc

I have a problem with my G5 PPC with OS X 10.5.8. I bought this Mac from an English friend of mine. He forgot an administrator password. I don't have the system CD or Internet connection.

I tried to follow your instructions in other post (command+s) but this is what happens when I do that (on the Mac).

I wrote the command like post and i tried to write in different mode. If you look the last row the command was not found or nothing found to load.

Now i have a new problem. following your instruction this is the results !

i hope you can help me please step by step … because i'am desperate

Excuse me for my english
problem

Best Answer

From the screenshot, I see that you've already gotten to "Single User Mode". (Command-S at power on should get you there unless there is an Open Firmware password - in which case you'd need to clear that by changing the installed RAM).

After mounting the filesystem:

mount -uw

You can change the password of a user:

passwd username

If you don't know the username, list the user home folders:

ls -l /Users/

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Please see the following Apple KB on resetting the Administrator password: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1274

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Once you are in single user mode you will need to do the following: 1) mount the file system as read-write 2) navigate to the /var/db directory 3) remove a special file that tells the computer it's already been set up 4) reboot the machine 5) go through the set up process to create a NEW admin account 6) log into the new admin account and reset the password on the original password via the system preferences

The details: Boot to single user mode, then type the following:

mount -uw /
cd /var/db
rm .AppleSetupDone
reboot

At this point the system will reboot and go through the "out of the box" setup process which will allow you to create a new Admin account. The original account will be intact.

After you've created the new user account, you can go to System Preferences, Accounts (might be Users & Groups, they keep changing the name!), and reset the password on the original account.

Keep in mind that if you do this you will lose all stored passwords on the original account, at least until the original owner is able to give you the old password.

Of course, as the new owner, you might want to just use the new account you create and delete the old one...

Best Answer

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