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How to I create a new admin user from the recovery boot?

My install of Lion seems somehow borked. I've read that one possible solution is to create a new user with admin privalidges and do some stuff that can fix my more general problem. I have no recovery partition, but I can boot with a Lion USB Recovery Stick, Lion's Internet Recovery, and a Lion install DVD that I made myself via some un-official instructions online. I can also boot in Single User Mode.


Is there a way for me to make a new user? I can't seem to figure it out.


Thanks-

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2), MacBookPro8,2

Posted on Nov 30, 2011 3:17 PM

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7 replies

Nov 30, 2011 3:26 PM in response to dsuchter

Either you reinstall Lion from scratch so you can create a new initial admin account or you must have an existing admin account you can log into to create a new account. Since you haven't indicated whether you can log into your existing account, all I would suggest is if you wish you can try reinstalling Lion, log into your old account then create a new account.


Install or Reinstall Lion from Scratch


If possible backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive.


Boot to the Recovery HD:


Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.


Erase the hard drive:


  1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
  2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
  3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
  4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.


Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Install button.


Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.



Reinstalling Lion


Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alterhatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.


Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.


When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.


Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.


Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

Nov 30, 2011 3:33 PM in response to Kappy

So my fundamental problem is that Lion isn't letting me log in. I have another recent thread on that topic but I don't have a link handy. In summary I have my password, can confirm it is correct, but can't log in to the GUI (safe mode or not, neither works). Since I have my password maybe I can do something anyway?

Nov 30, 2011 3:44 PM in response to Kappy

I've successfully changed my password already. That did not help. I hate to be a nit-picker but I asked a very specific question for a reason (reason: I've tried a bunch of things already that I don't care to reiterate here). Let's try to stick to the topic of creating a new admin user.


OSX is unix underneath, so can't I get to "useradd" or something similar from SUM?

Nov 30, 2011 4:02 PM in response to Kappy

Sorry. I *really* didn't want to be rude. I've been unable to log in to my actual computer for almost 9 days now so I've only got access through my iPhone browser, and let me tell you, Apple's discussions website is *not* friendly to its own iOS Safari /irony?/. Please accept my apology and hopefully the excuse that being without my computer and on a tiny screen for so long is killing my mood.


Anyway, I really am sorry. I would have put a link to my other post if I could have. Since it is now worth my extra effort, here are two relevant threads to my overall problem (where I'd consider this thread an attempt to find a path to one possible answer):


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3534016

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3325124


My fundamental problem is that I'm having a login-loop. I've actually got 4 user accounts on my machine, but I've only got the password to 1 of them. (1) is mine, no FileVault, and I both have the password and am able to change it using the recovery mode at-will, (2 and 3) are both friends, who forgot their passwords and have FV on, so while I can change their password the change process is smart enough to ask me for the old one so it can decrypt-and-reencrypt the FV content, (4) is the guest account, which has a password that I can't remember (my fault).


I've been to the genius bar, they gave up. I have a Time Machine backup from about 5 days before my problem happened, but I don't want to revert to that for a number of reasons, the most prominent being that I'll lose certain stuff I've done in the past few days and the second most prominent being the amount of effort it would require to find all my content manually (which is probably tied for how much effort it would take for me to re-install Lion from scratch and then re-install all my various software).


I can't find any links at the moment, but I've read a nubmer of blog and forum posts from people with similar issues who came to the eventual conclusion, "oh, you just create a new admin user, then figure out what's wrong with your user once your logged in." I'm almost positive I can solve my login loop problem *if* I can get in to my computer to debug the OS. Either one of my startup items is bad or something in OSX that changed with the last software update is causing a problem. I'd really like to get admin access to the actual OS (where "actual" != Single User Mode != "raw read/write access to the HFS+ volume") so I can either fix my problem, or if I can't do that, at least try to identify what it was so I can intelligently choose between restoring from my last TM backup or doing a truely fresh install and then re-installing all my softare.


guh.

Nov 30, 2011 4:08 PM in response to dsuchter

The discussions website isn't letting me edit, so I'll correct some stuff here. I forgot to mention that only account #1 in the above list is an admin account (mine). On a realted note, when I use thLion Recovery USB stick that I made ( http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 ) I can see 4 users in my reset password GUI, the first three are the expected ones (me and my two friends' accounts), but the fourth is "root" (instead of guest). I'm perfectly aware of what root is, and I haven't touched that account nor do I have any memories of every creating that and/or knowing the password for it. In the linux world loging in to X as root is a huge no-no so I'm going to assume that's the same case on OSX (just like all *nix OS's as far as I'm concerned). With that said, I'm happy to attempt it is that's my best way out of this hole.

How to I create a new admin user from the recovery boot?

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