I purchased a MacBook Pro yesterday & my user login is not working. I have tried all avenues to fix this problem (ie loading a start-up disc holding down 'C' key, nothing), please, please I just want to use it but can't access anything. Waiting with antic

OS X Lion: If you forget your login password

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4271 <<< click on link.

Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password

http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/24/reset-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-password/ <<<< Click on link.

There's a link at the bottom of his reply he was trying to get you to click with more information, but I'm curious. What version of OS X is supposed to be on the computer? You said something about a start-up disk?

Is the comptuer 2nd hand with Leopard/Snow Leopard, or new with Lion? It makes a difference as to how to reset the password. What is written on the label of that "start-up disk"?

Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password

Aug 24, 2011 - 36 Comments

One of several changes to Mac OS X Lion is how resetting passwords is handled, previous versions of Mac OS X would have a password reset tool easily accessible from the Utilities menu but that isn’t available anymore. There are still multiple approaches to resetting a lost user password in OS X 10.7, this walkthrough will cover two different methods, the first is unique to Lion and the second is a traditional workaround to reset a password.

Method 1 – Reset a Lost Mac OS X Lion Password

You have to boot from a Lion Recovery drive, this can either be a recovery disk made with the Lion Disk Maker tool, or just by booting from the built-in Lion Recovery HD partition.

• Hold “Option” at boot and select the “Recovery” disk at the boot menu
• Wait for “Mac OS X Utilities” menu to appear, indicating that you are booted into recovery mode
• Click on the “Utilities” menu and select “Terminal”

• Type the following:

resetpassword

• Confirm the user account and then the password change and reboot Mac OS X 10.7 as usual with your new password

This replaces the “Reset Password” menu item that used to be in place prior to OS X 10.7, which was one of two original methods of resetting a Mac OS X 10.6 or prior password. Why the change to the Terminal method? Probably for increased security now that recovery partitions are standard with Lion.

The above method is by far the easiest, but if it’s unavailable for some reason, you can choose another method:

Method 2 – Delete AppleSetupDone and Create a New Administrative Account

Mac OS X 10.7 does share a more untraditional approach to resetting a password as past versions of OS X. In this case, you can still delete the AppleSetup file which forces the “Welcome to Mac OS X” setup assistant to run again, which allows you to create an administrative account. You can then login to that new administrative account and reset your original account password.

From the Recovery Drive’s Terminal, type:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

Then reboot either through the menu item or by typing ‘reboot’ into the command line.

Follow the setup procedure as usual, create the new administrative account, and wait for Mac OS X to boot as usual into the new user account. You won’t see any of your familiar files or settings yet, and this is normal, because you have to reset the original password. Here’s how:

• Open “System Preferences” and click on “Users & Groups”
• Click on the lock icon in the lower left corner and authenticate, allowing you to make changes to user accounts
• Select your original user account from the left side Users list, and then click on the “Reset Password” button on the right

• Enter and confirm the new password
• Close out System Preferences and reboot

You can now login to the original user account with the new password you just set. Once logged into your original administrative account you can then return to User & Groups and delete the temporary admin account you created.

These two methods should work when booting a USB Lion install drive too, but it’s quicker to use the Recovery disk that is already active on OS X Lion installations.

Forgot an OS X Lion Password? Reset it Using an Apple ID

Nov 23, 2011 - 1 Comment

Aside from resetting a Mac OS X Lion password with the passwordreset command line tool or by creating a new user account, you can use a new feature in OS X 10.7 that allows a user password to be reset via the accompanying Apple ID, the same Apple ID that is tied to an iCloud, iTunes, App Store, and Apple Support account.

Resetting a Lost OS X Lion Password Using an Apple ID

Understand the caveats before beginning: this method only works if you set an Apple ID to tie with the OS X user account, and this option won’t be available for users with FileVault 2 protection enabled. Also note that this leads to the creation of a new keychain, but the old keychain will remain intact if you do recall the old password sometime down the road.

• After incorrectly entering a user password three times at the Mac login screen, a message appears saying “If you forgot your password, you can reset it using your Apple ID”, click the arrow button to bring up a “Reset Password” dialog
• Enter the Apple ID login information that is tied to the OS X Lion user account and click “Reset Password”
• Click “OK” to confirm the new keychain creation
• Enter and verify a new password, fill out the password hint field, and again click on “Reset Password”
• Click “Continue Log In” to login as the user account with the reset password

If there is no Apple ID attached to the user account, use the passwordreset tool or new user trick, and some of the more complex older methods from Mac OS X 10.6 continue to work as well.

Minolta25 wrote:

This is a brand new MacBook Pro OS Lion retina purchased 5/06/2012 not second-hand

Then whatever disk you were inserting was not the start-up disk. There is physical no start-up disk on such models.