Issue Booting into macOS

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Level 1

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Issue Booting into macOS

So it’s been around about a year ago that I wasn’t able to upgrade my Mac to the latest firmware, it would just reject my (correct) password every time, after some digging I found out that the issue stemmed from my account not being set as an owner on my Mac, which is weird because I’m the only account on my Mac and that the secure token wasn’t enabled on my user, so I boot it into recovery mode, opened up a terminal and typed “resetpassword” then followed the prompted instructions to reset my password, thinking that it would fix the issues with the secure token being disabled, after setting up a new password, I reboot my Mac to be greeted with an “Activate Mac” screen followed by “Select an admin user you know the password to” and then no users, not even my own, I tried every single thing, I can’t boot back into normal macOS because it will just show the same screen, I don’t even have access to the terminal. Is there a way to recover my Mac? I have some important files I can’t risk loosing.

All help is greatly appreciated!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Sep 21, 2024 7:17 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

245,501 points

Sep 21, 2024 11:15 AM in response to FatedSky

Boot into Restore mode,CMD+r keys...

Look at top of screen for Utilities menu, there choose Terminal...

Missing Mac Admin Account? Create a New Admin Account in macOS

This process will involve booting into Recovery Mode to remove a setup file from the Mac, which allows the macOS setup assistant to run again, thereby allowing you to create a new admin account on the Mac. This works with macOS Monterey and Big Sur, and earlier, for both M1 and Intel Macs.

Boot the Mac into Recovery Mode by restarting the Mac and holding down Command+R (Intel Macs) or the Power button (M1 Macs)

- For M1 Macs, choose “Options” at the boot menu that appears

At the macOS Utilities screen, open Disk Utility
Select “Macintosh HD – Data” from the side bar and choose to “Mount” the Data drive
Exit out of Disk Utility
Pull down the ‘Utilities’ menu and choose “Terminal”
Enter the following command into the Terminal:
cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/
Next enter the following command exactly as shown:
rm .AppleSetupDone
Restart the Mac and go through the Setup Assistant procedure as if the Mac was new to create a new admin user account on the Mac, this will be an administrator account

You’ll now have created a new admin account which is fresh and completely different user account than your standard user account. The standard user account and all user data still exists, assuming this was done properly.

You can either use this admin user account to authenticate as needed with administrator requests and logins, or you can modify the original user account to become an admin account again. We’ll cover that next.

How to Set Standard User Account to be Admin Account in macOS

Want to restore your original Mac user account to be an admin account again? That’s easy:

Boot into the newly created admin account, then pull down the  Apple menu and choose “System Preferences”
Go to “Users & Groups” and click the padlock icon to be able to modify user accounts
Select the original user account that you want to modify to Admin account privileges
Check the box for “Allow user to administer this computer”

https://osxdaily.com/2022/03/25/no-admin-account-mac-fix-macos/#:~:text=Missing%20Mac%20Admin%20Account%3F,admin%20account%20on%20the%20Mac.

Paste these lines into Text Edit so you can arrow thru & see the spaces...

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/

rm .AppleSetupDone

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