[boomerdang]

My little nephew got a new Macbook for his birthday and he accidently set it up without an administrator account-- I'm not sure how it happened, I looked under "accounts" in system preferences and it says under "My Accounts" his name and "standard."
Is there a fix for this? Thanks!

[turtle777]

Uhm, tried clicking on "Allow user to administer this computer" ?

-t

[Big Mac]

I don't think there's anyway to do that [edit: delete the only admin account]. But if it's a new computer you can always just erase the drive and reinstall the OS.

[Chuckit]

There was a way in previous versions. It almost certainly works on Leopard, but I haven't tried it, and I want to make myself a guinea pig before I tell people to mess with system files in Single User Mode.

If anybody else wants to guinea-pig themselves first and let us know how it works out, here's what you do:

1. Restart and hold down command-S until you get to a black screen with text
2. Type mount -uw / and hit return
3. Type cd /var/db and hit return
4. Type rm .AppleSetupDone and hit return (note the period in the name ".AppleSetupDone")
5. Type reboot and hit return
6. You should be taken to the Setup Assistant where you can create a new administrator and re-authorize your old account as desired

[turtle777]

Or create a new user, make him admin, then delete the old user account.

You still need to know the admin password. If you don't know that, you'd need to reset it by booting from the OS X install disk.

Or, at this point, I second the re-install.

-t

[boomerdang]

Thanks everyone for your help-- Could someone point me to a good set of instructions on how to erase the drive and reinstall mac os x?

turtle777: we don't have the administrator name/pw. thanks again everyone!

[angelmb]

Just launch the installer from the Leopard DVD (if your OS X system is running) or boot the Mac with the Leopard DVD disc inserted while holding down the C key, that will start the install, note it is going to be kind of slow since it all goes from a DVD disc which is way slower than an internal hard disk, it will ask you what kind of installation you would like to do… erase and install is what you want (given there is no valuable info in that computer).

[Andrew Stephens]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

There was a way in previous versions. It almost certainly works on Leopard, but I haven't tried it, and I want to make myself a guinea pig before I tell people to mess with system files in Single User Mode.

If anybody else wants to guinea-pig themselves first and let us know how it works out, here's what you do:

1. Restart and hold down command-S until you get to a black screen with text
2. Type mount -uw / and hit return
3. Type cd /var/db and hit return
4. Type rm .AppleSetupDone and hit return (note the period in the name ".AppleSetupDone")
5. Type reboot and hit return
6. You should be taken to the Setup Assistant where you can create a new administrator and re-authorize your old account as desired

I had this happen on an iMac I was working on last week. I ended up with two users on the mac, neither admins so the option to click on make this user an admin won't work since you don't have any admin privs. Went round in a few circles. Without an admin account you can't create a new admin user, could not get the machine to accept the root password. eventually tried this ^^ trick and it worked! Was a bit weird there for a while I can tell you.

[ibook_steve]

I'd be more interested in finding out how it's even possible to not have at least one admin user. If you try resetting the admin password with the OS install disk when there is no admin user, what happens?

Steve

[boomerdang]

Hey,
I couldn't get the cmd-s directions to work, and ran into the problem of not being able to run the installation from the disk because even that asks me for an administrator name and password.
Any ideas?

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by boomerdang 

Hey,
I couldn't get the cmd-s directions to work, and ran into the problem of not being able to run the installation from the disk because even that asks me for an administrator name and password.
Any ideas?

You have someone else's computer maybe?

[himself]

Are you sure this MacBook is new? It sounds like the firmware password has been set, in which case... you're screwed.

[turtle777]

Not really, but do we have to tell him ?

-t

[boomerdang]

Hm, no it is his computer he mail-ordered from Apple. We've got the box, serial number/purchase date. I guess we'll just have to call them up. I'll update this thread though!

[boomerdang]

One more question under this topic: the macbook is still under 1-year limited warranty but we're in New Orleans and the closest place with a "genius bar" is in Baton Rouge at the Mall of Louisiana, over an hour away.
Can I go to the nearest place with an "apple specialist" (there's a few in the area) or should I drive out to BR?