[Jordan]

Okay, this is not me.... Really!!!

I bought my brother a 17" iMac in Australia and had the dealer (not an Apple Store) set it up including transferring all the software from his old iMac to the new one. Much to my dissappointment the dealer did nothing of the sort but that is another story...

Anyway, I've hooked him up to Broadband and to install the software he is required to enter his Admin password. Problem is that he never knew it as it was created by the dealer and then set to auto login so he never needed to know it.

Thinking I had a solution, I asked him to boot off the OS X CD as you can reset the password from the installer. Problem is it doesn't seem to boot from the CD. I have tried a number of options:
- getting him to hold down C while restarting
- holding down option while restarting (but it doesn't show the CD)
- setting the startup disk to the CD and restarting

Bear in mind that I am doing this remotely over the phone but I am pretty sure he is following instructions. The installer will run off the OS X CD but requires admin password so back to square one.

Could the auto login be preventing a CD start up? I am loathe to take this off as he doesn't know his password so won't be able to login.

Can any other kind soul help out with some suggestions here. Really getting frustrated from the other side of the planet!!! I have asked him to contact the dealer although at the moment they are being non-responsive. In any case, they will probably wipe the hard disk if they do anything....

Any assistance greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Jordan

[Cipher13]

Booting off the CD to reset the password should NOT be inhibited by a current password...

Anyway.

Boot, hold command-s until you get to the shell prompt. Type:

mount -uw / <enter>
systemstarter <enter>
passwd [user]

That should be correct. I dunno. It's late, I'm tired, and this is at your own risk, blah blah, if you end up launching nuclear weapons because of a typo of mine, tough luck.

It's from memory, so might be wrong. I'm not gonna reboot just to check it. You can probably even just do

/usr/bin/passwd

straight away, without the systemstarter et al. But whatever.

[Jordan]

Thanks Cipher.

Somehow I thought you might answer this... Helping a digger down on his luck....

Will try the aforementioned when he wakes up tomorrow and will post results either way.

You are right though, booting off CD doesn't require the current password. Have checked this on mine. Will also check your solution below.

One point of concern. I am wondering if the numbnut who set up the system installed the BSD component... Not sure if this is needed though.

Ta...

[Angus_D]

You can disable booting off CDs using Open Firmward Password. See here and here.

[theory]

If you forget the open firmware password it
can be reset unless you turned that option
of.

Cypher's answer will work except you
don't need SystemStarter. In fact if
you use SystemStarter it will not work.

any way Command-S
mount -uw /
passwd [user] (it is root by default)
will work

because you are running as root passwd
will not ask for the old password when
creating the new password (if you are not
running it as root it will ask for old password
).

[Jordan]

Originally posted by theory:
Cypher's answer will work except you
don't need SystemStarter. In fact if
you use SystemStarter it will not work.

any way Command-S
mount -uw /
passwd [user] (it is root by default)
will work

because you are running as root passwd
will not ask for the old password when
creating the new password (if you are not
running it as root it will ask for old password
).

Cyphers answer did work. Tried it last night on my machine at home. Am attempting to try it on my brothers (over the phone) shortly. Will advise all soon.

Thanks for the advice....

[Jordan]

Thanks to all that replied.

All sorted now. Those commands worked and as on my computer needed the SystemStarter.

Cheers... Jordan