My administrator account was set to standard?

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Level 1

9 points

My administrator account was set to standard?

So I just got a brand new macbook pro about 4 months ago. It was working perfectly, until last night everything froze and stopped responding, so I restarted my computer. But when it restarted it took forever to reboot and when it finally did it just gave me options to restore with time machine, reinstall os x lion, check my disk for problems or search for help. After trying to get all the other options to work (none of them did), I opted to reinstall os x lion (wasn't too worried about losing files or data or anything seeing as there wasn't much on here yet anyway).

So the reinstall seemed to work fine. All the mac basics were there and stuff and some of my files had even been recovered. But when I tried to reinstall an application I had lost, it asked me to enter the admin information to confirm that this was ok. When I entered my username and password, it didn't work. I tried multiple times and it kept not working. So I checked Users and Group settings and sure enough, my account (the only account that exists on this computer) is set to standard! So now my computer has no administrator account. Obviously, I need one to reinstal all my apps, so please help? D:

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Apr 4, 2012 6:28 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

127,195 points

Oct 17, 2017 9:24 AM in response to CharlesRLMartin

changing the file system would not affect removing (rm) that invisible variable, which is still present in High Sierra.

I suspect the problem is more due to not typing the commands EXACTLY as written.

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Answer 2

Jan 3, 2018 10:59 AM in response to d_mcgregs

when I start my Mac again, it takes me to the login screen with my Standard account and the guest account.

If you did this correctly, your Mac will start up in Setup Assistant.

You likely made mistake in typing. The Terminal commands remove a directory, whose presence indicates that setup was already done. After removal, setup shows as NOT done, so setup assistant will run on Startup.

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Running Setup Assistant again modifies NOTHING already present on your Mac, except to create a new Account. If you wanted to be extremely cautious, you would create a new and different account (which will be an Admin account by default) and it will never even reference your existing account.

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Answer 3

Nov 28, 2017 8:38 PM in response to Csound1

Tried this in High Sierra, but when I start my Mac again, it takes me to the login screen with my Standard account and the guest account... Not sure where I can make a new account

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Answer 4

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Apr 4, 2012 6:59 PM in response to LakeLouise

Hi

Do this, print it out and enter the commands carefully

1. Reboot

2. Hold command + s key down after you hear the chime.

3. When you get a text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account (hitting return after each line):

(Type these commands very carefully)

mount -uw /

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

shutdown -h now

4. You will go through the setup process again, create a new admin account, login to it and then change your existing account password or whatever else you need to do. You can delete the account you made in this process, or not.

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