[bobhenr]

Yesterday I was asked by a mutual friend to help an guy with printing problems on his 15" flat panel running OS 10.1. (obviously the old kind) iMac. Having gotten the necessary info over the phone, I downloaded the latest driver on my fast web connection and took it over to his house. I started the installation process, armed with the necessary password so I could complete it, but instead of getting a popup window asking for the password, I simply got a message saying I could not modify the computer because I did not have a password, then the computer tried dialing out on the web, which was not hooked up. It tried over and over to dial up something somewhere , ignoring the cancel button it offered up, or at least trying to redial so fast it sounded like it was ignoring the button. It took about 20 "cancels" to stop it. It probably stopped itself.

Nothing other than the computer's attempts at dialing out showed up on the console during this time. I couldn't see anything that defined the source of the dialing.

I'm working on using the terminal like a true geek but this problem was new and without reference materials, I didn't feel comfortable probing his computers innards.

I asked him if the computer had ever been on a network and he said it hadn't. He purchased it new. However, he had never added any programs beyond what came with it. The store where he bought it set it up for the printer and scanner for him.

This isn't a problem, because I talked him into getting OS 10.3 and more memory (he's determined to learn Photoshop) and I'm going to reformat the drive, but does anyone know what could cause these symptoms?

[himself]

If he did purchase it new, with a freshly installed OS, it could have been trying to contact apple to send the registration information. It does sound strange that it happened the way it did, though.

[pat++]

Originally posted by bobhenr:

This isn't a problem, because I talked him into getting OS 10.3 and more memory (he's determined to learn Photoshop) and I'm going to reformat the drive, but does anyone know what could cause these symptoms?

Did you try to add a password for the user (assuming he doesn't have any)?

[bobhenr]

I talked to the man this morning about scheduling a return visit, and I mentioned again how puzzled I was about the computer being inaccessible. He mentioned for the first time that his grandchildren (teens) had been on the machine several times trying to "fix" things for him, and that their actions probably caused the current symptoms. But its still curious to me how they did it.

In response to the above, he was the only user and there is no access to the system prefs (I forgot to mention that). Again, I'm new with terminal stuff and I didn't want to tackle that without instructions. With the impending installation of a new system, I not worried about it. But it would be nice to know how one got the only user account to lock itself out of the computer puzzled me. Certainly not something I would want to re-create casually.

The first response asked if it was trying to contact Apple. That's a plausable explanation. As I understand it this computer has never been hooked up to the internet.

I'm going to try a few terminal things when I get back to the computer before I install the new OS, but if anyone else has any ideas, let me know.