[jwhoose]

MacBook pro 2007 running Mac OSX 10.5.8

After attempting to open a file (from a reliable government website) Computer froze up. Force shut it down.
After restarting, startup would begin stuck on blue or grey screen? Fan sounded like it was working overtime.
Did A Parameter restart. Log in screen appeared. Attempted to log in to my admin user. Pass word entered, appeared to start loaded the desktop then went straight back to log in screen. Was able to log in to a non admin user successfully and that guest user account was completely intact. Subsequent attempts to log in to admin user account, got the same effect, it begins to load then returns to log in screen. Is there a way to access the files on the admin account or transfer the contents to an external hard drive? or is it likely the admin user account and its contents will no longer be available?

[P]

Easiest way I can think of off hand is to login using the working account, go to System Preferences, unlock (click the padlock) and enter the admin user login and pass, and make a new admin account. Then login to the new admin account and copy things from the old admin account.

[mflender]

Boot to Single User Mode by holding command s at startup. Once at the command line type.
mount -uw /
and then click return
type
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
and then click return
type reboot and click return. Setup a different user account when the apple setup starts. This account will be an admin. You can then use it to modify the other account or reclaim files.

[jwhoose]

Ill have to try that. Thanks for the help!