[HeatherP]

I have a problem that is driving me crazy!! My emac would turn on... I would get the pinwheel... but it would only go so far as the blue screen. A friend told me to re-install Disc 1. Did that... I got a message saying that installation was successful and the computer would re-start. It did and now I get a screen telling me that it is, indeed, my computer, but it also asks me for a name and a password. I tried filling in my name and my password, but it doesn't recognize it. Another IT friend told me to re-insert the installation disc and select a new password directly from the disc. Tried this but nothing displays but this same white box that says Mac OSX, the fact that it is my computer but it still asks me for a name and password.

Can anybody help??

[Waragainstsleep]

What do you mean by nothing displays but the white box? Did the password reset utility go through the motions and just not work?
If thats the case, you have two options really:
1: Do a whole pile of fancycommand line trickery in single user mode (I can't tell you much more than how to get into single user mode - boot holding apple-S). I guess if you can google how to create a new user from terminal, you might be able to log in as that user. But you will need asmin privileges to get at the data in the other account, or to changes its passwords. That will rely on the Mac recognising your root password. While this is probably the same as your account password, it may be stored separately, so might not have been corrupted.
2: Boot into firewire target mode, rescue your data with another Mac, then do an erase and install.

Or you could take it to a service provider. But then you will have to pay of course.
I guess you could try repairing the disk permissions from disk utility. This is also on your install disc 1. Try the password reset afterwards again.

[HeatherP]

Thanks for replying. I'll give it a go and post what happens.