[malique]

Yaya, I know what y'all will be saying (stop laughing!)...

a friend forgot her admin password and I am the on e to reconfig her PBook. Overinstalling Panther over 10.21 worked w/o but now (installing process) we're stuck.

ANY IDEA how to regain/renew the password or work around it like creating a new admin user etc.?

Pleeeeease with a cherry...

[pendragon]

To reset the administrator password using the Mac OS X CD:
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install Disc 1 CD and restart the computer.
2. When you hear the startup tone, hold down the C key until you see the spinning gear.
3. When the Installer appears, choose Installer > Reset Password.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to change the password.
5. Quit the Installer and restart your computer while holding down the mouse button to eject the CD.

See Apple Knowledge base document 151815.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by malique:
Yaya, I know what y'all will be saying (stop laughing!)...

a friend forgot her admin password and I am the on e to reconfig her PBook. Overinstalling Panther over 10.21 worked w/o but now (installing process) we're stuck.

ANY IDEA how to regain/renew the password or work around it like creating a new admin user etc.?

Pleeeeease with a cherry...

If it is set to autologin as the admin, you can create a new admin user *without* the admin password. Bizarre, I know, but it works.

[malique]

Originally posted by pendragon:
To reset the administrator password using the Mac OS X CD:
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install Disc 1 CD and restart the computer.
2. When you hear the startup tone, hold down the C key until you see the spinning gear.
3. When the Installer appears, choose Installer > Reset Password.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions to change the password.
5. Quit the Installer and restart your computer while holding down the mouse button to eject the CD.

See Apple Knowledge base document 151815.

Thanks a lot lot lot, worked perfectly!

[pendragon]

Originally posted by malique:
Thanks a lot lot lot, worked perfectly!

You're very very very welcome. Glad it hear it all worked out!

[tooki]

Originally posted by Detrius:
If it is set to autologin as the admin, you can create a new admin user *without* the admin password. Bizarre, I know, but it works.

Hehe, I did that at Best Buy once. Their mistreated demo iMac had everything blocked so that you couldn't do anything -- yet it was logged in as an admin. So I made a fresh admin account, and then changed the password on the original admin account.

tooki

[TeknoTurd]

Do all OS's have this kinda work around? It seems ridiculous to me that they do, there must be a more effective and secure way to reset the pw on an account. I mean any half-wit who steals a laptop can do this and get full access to your stuff.

[tooki]

It depends on the OS.

As evidenced by this thread, most people don't know about the password reset. And for those who don't like it, it's easy to set an Open Firmware password that prevents booting from CD and booting into single-user mode (the other way to reset a password).

tooki

[car1son]

Windows XP has a slightly different recovery technique: you make your own password recovery disk for each installation. (Of course, you need to remember to make that password recovery disk before you forget or lose your password.) Fortunately or unfortunately, the password algorithm used by Windows XP is so primitive that cracker applications can generally perform a brute-force attack and determine the password in only a few hours.

The Mac's open-firmware password is also trivial to bypass, once you know the trick.

Honestly, no commercial / consumer manufacturer is about to produce hardware or software that can become inaccessible junk if the password holder forgets it or leaves the company. Given that, it's inevitable that the "trick" to resetting or recovering the password will eventually become known to anyone who truly cares to find out.

To protect truly sensitive data, you really need to rely on encryption. With Panther you can use File Vault, or with Panther or Jaguar you can use individual encrypted disk images. Given a halfway decent password, no one will be able to penetrate your data with current technology. This is a two-edged sword: if you forget the password, you will never see that data again, either. No trick to recover. Gone. Lost. No whining.

[Xeo]

Hmm. Question. If you are the only admin user on the computer, and you have your stuff encrypted with FileVault, when you reset the password using the CD, do you get access to your files using the new password? I ask because if so then it means that FileVault isn't really secure since would-be-thieves could just reset the password to access your secure files.

And how does FileVault keep admin uses out of other user accounts?

I'm sure this topic was discussed in depth when FileVault was announced, but anyone got a simple and definite answer?

[tooki]

Resetting an account password will not give access to FileVault. The ONLY back door to FileVault is the "master password" (which would be better called the "master FileVault password") that must be set on the machine if you enable FileVault. The master password is basically an alternate password that is shared among all the FileVaults on a machine and can be used to set new passwords for FileVaults. If you forget the FileVault password and the master password, there is no way to decrypt it.

tooki

[Xeo]

Originally posted by tooki:
If you forget the FileVault password and the master password, there is no way to decrypt it.

And therefore would-be thieves would have no way of decrypting your data. Nice.