Leopard Does Not Recognise My Password - Help!!

I had the same exact problem today when I upgraded. My username was "standard" and no langer had admin privileges, so I could not change preferences, load programs etc.

I followed the 11 step suggestion posted by julian brown in this post, and it WORKED.....except

instead of entering "system administrator" as the username, I had to use "boot" as the username. Miracle of miracles, the password I set up from the install disc reset passwords program WORKED!!!! and I was able to give my original account adminstration privileges intstead of "standard"

Did you mean "root"? That's what worked for me. I wish I had looked here for help sooner. I came real close to an erase and reinstall. Thanks for your help!

I have the same problem and the resetting of the password doesn't seem to help, the issue seems to be the "username" "System Administrator", "root", "boot" and even the short username for my primary account coupled with the reset password still won't permit me to unlock my system.

This solution DOES NOT WORK.

First, the utility is called "Reset Password"

Second, the username field in the Reset Password utility is a drop-down list. I can see both my usernames there, admin and root, and I can change those pws but when I get the login screen at startup, neither are listed. I type them in there and simply, nothing works.

PLUS...

When I reset the password using this method I get an alert box that says "The password has been saved for the user [username]. Resetting a user's password does not change the password for the user's login keychain so it will not be unlocked automatically. Use keychain access to reset the password for the user's login keychain."

Now call me crazy, but if I am reading that correctly, didn't it just tell me it will not change my login password? And I cannot access "keychain access" unless I am logged into the system.

I have been going at this for several hours now and I am starting to get frustrated...

PLUS... what the heck are you talking about "Once restarted, select accounts from the System Preferences menu."

I don't have any accounts to select... and that is from the LOGIN SCREEN. I am miles away from any system preferences menu at this point.

After I type dscl . -delete /Users/[username] AuthenticationAuthority in step six, I get the following error messge:

DS Error: -14009 (eDSUnknownNodeName)

had to go through four different user names but finally fount one that took. Now that I am into the system, hopefully I can fix things from here. I'll know a lot after I restart... shudder...

I had this log in problem as well. I had first tried an upgrade installation. It seemed to work. Then software update came on, asked for my login info, and wouldn't accept the password. I contacted tech support and ended up dealing with them for more than 10 hours over two days. Lots of efforts at issuing single user commands, etc. Finally I was encouraged to start up from the installation DVD and do an archive and install. This then asked me to set up a new user account and password. This seems to have worked, albeit at the cost of my having lots of work to do to restore some of my settings, etc. There are some odd folders on my machine, which I'm trying to find out about from tech support, but at least I'm up and running. This has been far and away the most problematic Mac upgrade I've dealt with...and I've had Macs since 1984. Very troubling.

me bad

I reset by signing in as root, not boot

but only AFTER resetting the password for system administrator (root) using the OSX install utility.

This happened to me as well. I ended up changing the password with the utility on the Leopard DVD, then logged in as "root" or "System Administrator." I was able to get in.

The silly thing is, it deleted my old username in the Users panel, but I can see it and access files on the HD under Users\.

So I guess I just need to create a new user eh? And drag all the files over.

I have tried to follow your instructions, but must be doing something wrong. How are you booting from the installer? I have shut down with 10.5 in the drive and started up while holding the C key. Not only does the system restart with Leopard as the OS, but if I go to Utilities, I do not have a anything that relates to Reset Password. Any ideas.

Thanks.

I have been fighting this leopard since installed. It would not recognize my password., I reset it using disc utility after starting up off the disc. But I can not get access to goive myself administrator privelages. Very frustrating. Apple? what gives guys?

I thought about that too, but have had problems with permissions. In other words, I can drag the files over fine using the "root" or "system administrator" account, but then I can not use them in the new regular "administrator" account.

I think the best thing is to get my old account working, but I'm still pretty far from that. I wonder if Apple has help for this problem.

I upgraded from 10.4.9 to 10.5 yesterday and had a similar thing - only said "Other..." and I could not sign on. None of the "gobbledygook" methods helped - a bit scary anyway. This morning I spoke to the local Apple supplier, who suggested I re-run the install, but click on "Options" and select "Archive & Install". (The default is just "install", which is what I ran first time.)

At the end of the "Archive and Install" the user names were back, and everything seems normal.

I hope this works for you.