[i am confused]

I only have one account on my G4 ibook 1.42 and upon startup I get this message after entering my password:

"You are unable to log in to the user account "myname" at this time."

and the choice to choose "OK"

Then it shakes like it does when I mistype my password. After doing this three consecutive times it gives me my hint, and on the fourth time it prompts me to enter my master password then reset my password but still will not let me login. I ran DiscWarrior and it said my disk is fine and I rebuilt it but still have not had any luck.

[mfbernstein]

Do you have FileVault enabled? It's been known to cause odd behavior WRT passwords.

To change the password, boot from your install CD, and go to "Reset Password" in the utilities menu.

[littlevish]

Make sure CAPS LOCK is off also.

[i am confused]

I reset my password from the install disk and ran a system check (that said everything is fine) to no avail. any other ideas before I take it to the apple store?

[i am confused]

and yes file vault is enabled if it makes a difference.

[i am confused]

so i went to the apple store and the "genius" told me i was screwed because i have filevault enabled. i searched around and found a couple people with the same problem but no solution. does anyone have any ideas, or other websites to check before i do a clean install?

[mfbernstein]

Well, it's kind of hackish, but if you're comfortable with the terminal, here goes:
Boot in single user mode (hold down command-S).
Once booted, type in:
mount -uw /
rm -f /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
reboot

This time when your system boots, you should be greeted with what appears to be a freshly-installed system. It will ask you the standard configuration questions. When creating a username, DO NOT USE THE SAME USERNAME AS BEFORE (or anything similar) or you may overwrite your old data.

Once you're logged in, open a terminal,
sudo bash (type in your new user's password)
cd /Users
ls -al

Here, you should see listed the folder of your old user. Change its permissions so your new user can get to it:
chmod -R 777 oldusername

At this point, you can now use the finder to navigate to /Users/oldusername . Back-up the file oldusername.sparseimage if you haven't already. Then try opening it. You'll be asked for a password by DiskUtility. Hopefully one of the old passwords you set for FileVault will work. If it does, your old home directory will be mounted on the desktop, and you can create a new user and copy the relevant data over.

Whether or not you try this (or it works), I'd recommend in the future steering clear from FileVault. That or make unencrypted backups regularly. Too many things can go wrong.

[funkypepper]

well, i had that problem before and i was about to go mad with my macbook. it may seem as a stupid point but, after redetermining your password with install disk, do not forget to click once to eject the install disk.

[Big Mac]

I hope File Vault is either vastly improved or disabled in Leopard, because the Tiger version has caused many people a lot of pain.

[besson3c]

I think you could also mount the Filevault encrypted image via single user mode using the diskutil command. From there, you can transfer your data out of this image.

Search Macosxhints.com for resetting your Filevault password. I'm sure there is a way to do this via the command line which you can do in Single User Mode. If there is a way, this is probably the most painless approach.

[Bob_Barker]

If you can't mount the FileVault image, pick up a copy of DiskWarrior and run it as another user. It should see the FileVault as a disk you can rebuild.

DW may not be able to repair the image, but it could permit you to access the content on your FileVaulted Home Folder using the Preview function (as it did in my case). While the preview drive is mounted, whatever data was recognized by DW can be copied to another drive or another folder on your HD.