Reset a Lost Mac OS X Password
I've you've forgotten your Mac's admin account password, don't worry. Assuming you haven't locked out OpenFirmware, it's a pretty simple task to change your password back to something you know.
The easiest and sure way to change passwords is to:
- Put you Mac OS X disk in the drive
- Reboot while holding down the 'c' key
- When the OS boots click through until the Utility menu appears at the top of the screen
- Go to the Password Utility
- Select the drive and System Administrator
- Change the password and save
- Quit Password Utility
- Quit Install...it will ask you to reboot
- Login is as System Administrator
- Go to System Preferences and change all of the passwords you want
Here's how:
- Hold Apple+S when booting to enter single user mode
- #sh /etc/rc
- #passwd yourusername
- #reboot
If you can't recall your user name, you can either look in the /Users folder (the directories are named by user), or run "niutil -list . /users".
Also, on older systems the /etc/rc script isn't available, apparently. If that second step fails, try mounting and starting the base services manually:
- #/sbin/fsck -y
- #/sbin/mount -uw /
- #/sbin/SystemStarter
I've had to do this a couple of times for friends when they've bought a second hand machine, and once when I had a momentary brain lapse and forgot my own password. Works like a charm, though you'll loose any passwords stored in your keychain.
