Trying to recover admin password without disc

Question

klm4Bostons Author

Level 1

5 points

Trying to recover admin password without disc

I've tried the following to NO avail: (I'm on a 2006 MacBook with Snow Leopard)

Shut down

Power/Apple+s

Mount-uw/

Rm/var/db/AppleSetupDone

Shutdown -h now

Nothing.

Shut down

Power/Apple+s

/sbin/mount/ -uw /

launchctl load /system/library/launchdaemons/com.Appledirectoryservices.plist

Dscl . -passwd /users/ my name & new password

exit

Nothing.

I tried a couple variations on that second one because the girl on YouTube kept saying "dash" when she was typing slashes.

Help!!! Completely locked out n freakin'.

iPhone 3GS, iOS 6.1.2

Posted on Mar 16, 2013 10:55 AM

Reply

Answer 1

klm4Bostons Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 16, 2013 11:03 AM in response to klm4Bostons

I remembered my recently updated password (I have to make sure I update the password hint.

However-- neither of the above worked and I'd like to know

How to recover my password without a disc for

Future use as I'm sure this wont be the last time

Reply

Answer 2

BobHarris

Level 9

53,081 points

Mar 16, 2013 1:01 PM in response to klm4Bostons

Did you actually enter these command without out spaces between the appropreate fields?

Mount-uw/

should be

mount -uw /

or

mount <space> -uw <space> /

and

Rm/var/db/AppleSetupDone

should be

rm <space> /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

with a period before .AppleSetupDone

When you reboot, you should be promoted to setup a new admin account as well as go though all your "I just got my Mac setup information"

I have never tried the other approach, but if you munged the commands similar to what you have posted for the first set, then I expect something when wrong with that as well.

I would have expected errors being reported if you actually entered the above commands wrong. Did you get any, and can you post them.

Reply

Answer 3

ds store

Level 7

30,715 points

Mar 16, 2013 1:37 PM in response to klm4Bostons

You can't recover the password, but you can reset it.

Hold command s and boot the machine

fsck -fy

mount -uw /

ls /Users/    (only if you don't remember the name)

passwd usernamehere

Type new password in twice

reboot

or

exit

Then reset the keychain

https://support.apple.com/kb/ts1544

The Applesetupdone deletion is to create a new Admin account on the machine in case you only have one and it's not logging in for some reason and you need to grab files using another Admin account.

Reply