Linux Format forums

Re: Mac Tiger login problem

ollie — Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:44 am

Author: ollie

Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:44 am

I should have answered one of your questions earlier! Any Apple OS X 10.5 will allow you to boot into the recovery mode. You can reset the administrator password from the this disc menu. You may also be interested in this article - Reset OS X Password Without an OS X CD.

Filevault will be a little more difficult

Re: Mac Tiger login problem

thenox — Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:50 am

Author: thenox

Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:50 am

yea...i did that. Unfortunately, they've given up as well. They really didn't kow why it acted the way it is now.

Thanks for the tip anyway.

Unfortunately, I'm still very stubborn. I have a feeling that even if I lost the data in filevault, I should be able to recover something.

It's like picking a box of a filevault out of a room. problem is we can't even open this "room".

RE: Re: a warning saying I cannot login at this time

ollie — Thu Aug 07, 2008 1:13 pm

Author: ollie

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 1:13 pm

If you have added File Vault encryption into the equation I strongly recommend that you don't play anymore. Take the system to a highly respected local Apple agent or, preferably, to a specialist data recovery service if there is any important data on the drive. Unfortunately they will charge a considerable sum, but only if they recover the data. Then start with your Apple DVD and re-install from scratch and put it down to a learning experience - administrator level passwords are important, even more so when using encryption.

RE: Re: a warning saying I cannot login at this time

thenox — Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:59 am

Author: thenox

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:59 am

[quote="ollie"]

thenox wrote:

would that also works with my problem?

I also cannot login to my user account (there are 2 user accounts). I can login to the other one. The password is correct too.
everytime I entered the correct password, a warning popped out saying "
You are unable to login to user "username" at this time"

But, I managed to open the other user account.

Any idea? Please help.

Probably, if youThanks for the reply.

that other account also acts as an 'admin'. I tried going to the other admin user account (the original admin), and to change the setting to 'automatically logging as'----the user account name that I wanted to was not there. As if there were only 1 user account to begin with.

Apparently, I have also set that user account (the one that cannot be logged in), into filevault. I'm not sure if that makes any different.

Any other ideas?

Re: a warning saying I cannot login at this time

ollie — Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:23 am

Author: ollie

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:23 am

thenox wrote:

Probably, if you're using Mac OS X.

I'm taking it that you have an "admin" account and then the other account is only a standard account which can't change passwords, install software, create accounts, etc. You can't access the "admin" account through "System Preferences" because you don't know the Local Admin password.

a warning saying I cannot login at this time

thenox — Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:16 am

Author: thenox

Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:16 am

would that also works with my problem?

I also cannot login to my user account (there are 2 user accounts). I can login to the other one. The password is correct too.
everytime I entered the correct password, a warning popped out saying "
You are unable to login to user "username" at this time"

But, I managed to open the other user account.

Any idea? Please help.

Re: Mac Tiger login problem

Aquafire — Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:33 am

Author: Aquafire

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:33 am

You know..

I am pretty sure I have posted the solution somewhere.

In fact , I think it was at Mac Mini 123.

Do as follows.

Reboot the machine into single user mode (CMD+S on boot)

Mount the root file system as read/write (mount -uw /)

Edit the SUDOERS file (visudo)

Change all occurences of "(ALL) ALL" to "NOPASSWD: ALL"

Save the SUDOERS file and reboot (ESC-w, ESC-q, 'reboot')

Open a terminal and execute the command 'sudo passwd root'

Aquafire

Re: Mac Tiger login problem

Rhakios — Sun Sep 16, 2007 6:53 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 6:53 pm

To be honest, I think I noticed your post over on the MacFormat forums, but thought that any minute one of the wise ones would post something about single user mode (as it's been mentioned before, or was that in the magazine?), so rather than go off googling, I passed on to the next post. I didn't notice that no one had bothered to offer this solution

Re: Mac Tiger login problem

jer1ch0 — Sun Sep 16, 2007 3:26 pm

Author: jer1ch0

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 3:26 pm

Many many Thanks Rhakios. That worked.
I posted this problem on a few Mac forums but no one was able to help. I should have known to come to the Linux community first.
jer1ch0

RE: Mac Tiger login problem

Rhakios — Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:54 am

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:54 am

What about this for booting into single-user mode and changing the password.

Mac Tiger login problem

jer1ch0 — Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:14 am

Author: jer1ch0

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:14 am

Ok, I posted this in a couple of Mac forums but got no solution. I thought I'd run it by you guys here seeing as how its unix related.

I'm a pc guy but I inherited a Mac G5 from my job. I came without mouse, keyboard, monitor and OS. (It has Tiger pre-installed)
I got it up and running perfectly utilizing my own PC mouse, keyboard and monitor via a KVM switch. Worked perfect and very impressed with Apple.
However due to work commitments I had not started it up in over a month until yesterday.
I was unable to login because it would not accept my passwords (Admins or user) The caps lock/num lock keys are not on and I'm positive that I'm using the correct password. I understand that this can be fixed with the OS disc, but as I said I don't have one.
The only hardware change in the last month has been a monitor upgrade from a crt to an lcd screen. I don't think this should cause my problem.
I got my hands on an Apple keyboard and mouse but the problem still exists - refuses passwords, login screen shakes from side to side briefly and offers password hint after three attempts.
Is there a keyboard press that enables me to type in the user name instead of picking a name from the menu? If there was I would be able to see if it actually types the correct letters. As you know typing the password shows only asterisks.

Tried re-seating memory and expansion cards, to no avail.

Can it be started from the command line so I could reset passwords?
I'm bugged because it used to work before.
I'm kinda convinced that the only solution is to boot with a Tiger Install disc (which I will have to source) Will a borrowed OS disc work? Will I have to buy Tiger? Surely this being unix there must be some way to rescue the system from the command line?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.