reset lost admin password command not found error

Hello

Ok here we go:

1- You have to restart your MBA holding down the Command+S keys, and this will take you into Single User Mode and it’s Terminal interface.

2- Then you have to check the filesystem. to do this you have to type the following command in the terminal interface:

fsck -fy

3- Then you have to mount the root drive with write option enabled so you can apply and save any changes. Type this in the temrinal interface:

mount -uw /

4- And then type this command exactly as you see it here:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

5- Reboot your MBA by typing this in the terminal interface:

reboot

6- After you reboot, you will be see the “Welcome Wizard” startup screen. Follow the wizard and create a new user account. This new account name must be different from the onewhose password you want to recover.

7- Continue and boot into your Mac OS X with the new account you have just created, this new user account is an Administrator and has administrative access

8- Now that you're logged in, go to System Preferences

9- Click on Users & Groups

10- Click on the Lock icon and use your newly created user name and password if asked. This will allow you to make changes to other user accounts

11- On the user panel select the user account whose password you have forgotten and then click on the Change Password... button.

12- Enter your new password

13- Reboot/restart your MBA and now you can log back in with your old account. If you want you can delete the user account you created following this steps.

Hope this helps.

Good luck

If you want to preserve the data on the boot drive, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data, you can skip this step.

There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to fully boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.

1. Boot into Recovery (command-R at startup) or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in the support article linked below, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”

How to back up and restore your files

2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.

How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode

3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

Sure you didn't miss any step?? I've done this myself and I gave the same steps to people who also forgot their passwords and it worked for all of them. Try doing it again.

good luck

In the Terminal window, type this:

res

Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:

resetpassword

Press return. This only works in Recovery mode.

It sounds like your boot drive has failed, or you have some other hardware fault. What backups do you have?

You have serious problems that haven't been solved, but that's a subject for another discussion.

Glad to help 🙂