[David13]

i got my dad's used mac as a present and wanted to put some new software on it but it requires his password and hes doesnt remember it. Is there any way to override his old password and create one of my own? Thanks for all your help.

[Macpilot]

You need the discs that came with the machine, or get yourself a copy of Tiger or whatever OS will run on that system. Can you provide more info on the system?

The OS or restore discs will allow you to boot from them and then there is a Reset Password function.

The best thing to do when getting a machine from somebody else is to do a zero-erase of the hard drive and then install a clean system on it. This can be done with the discs that came with it.

[David13]

Thanks for the help. i was planning on reformatting the whole thing anyway so i can set it up with my own settings. When i put the disk in it asks for the password when i want to restart the computer, do i just have to manually hold down the power button and restart it that way??? The comp. is an iBook G4 with a 60 GB HD and 1GB of Ram...Thanks for the help and for your patience.

[Macpilot]

Just turn off the machine with that disc inside. Then power it up and after you hear the startup chime, hold down the C key until you see the grey apple. This will take you to the OS X installer.

When it asks for which language, select what you want. Then from the menu bar you need to click on one of the menus and you will see something called Disk Utility. Run that. Select the Macintosh HD and select the Erase tab. You will see a button called Security Options. Click that and select to "zero all data". Click OK and go ahead with the erase. This process will also verify that there is nothing physically wrong with the hard disk. This process on a 60 GB drive might take about 30 minutes or so.

After it is done erasing the disk, restart the machine again holding down the C key and then install OS X.

Let us know how it goes!

[Eriamjh]

...and don't forget the frakkin' password!

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh

...and don't forget the frakkin' password!

He didn't forget it, he didn't know it in the first place.