I cannot log in to a MAC 10.5.8 and File Vault was NOT turned on.

Dear Mac Experts:

I know that there are many pages of information about using, remembering and managing passwords. I have read most of them.I know the passwords and File Vault was not on. I am working at someone's home on their computer and running their business. The computer is running MAC 10.5.8 and I don't know if it can be updated. The computer had an Admin account and no user accounts. I tried to change this so the compuer would be secure but my client did not want to. When I left yesterday the computer was fine. When I came in today there were a number of apps hanging. I forced quit Firefox and some other apps and logged out an shut down the computer. When I tried to log into the Admin Account which is the main user account I got the error messages below:

Your FileVault-protected home folder did not open and needs to be repaired.

click ok to repair the folder and continue logging in.

I clicked ok

then I got a new error message:

You are unable to log in to the user account "x" at this time because and error occured.

Clicked OK

File Vault was not turned on at anytime that I know of in the last couple of months. I luckily had a guest user set up and logged in as guest. In order to create another Admin account I had to use the password for the initial Admin main user account which unlocked the preferences pane and allowed me to create a new Admin Account.

Checked that FileVault was turned off.

After reading all of your comments and suggestions for the last 2 hours my head is spinning.

I don't know unix or type commands. I don't know where the install discs are.

As the new Admin I went into the keychain files and tried to verify and repair the original Admin's info.

Here is what I got:

Verification started

Checking keychain configuration for Susan F (user ID=501)

Home directory is /Users/suero

Checked login keychain

Error: login keychain not found

Unable to get info for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain, reason: No such file or directory

Checked password for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Unable to verify password for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain (-25294)

Unable to read settings for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain (-25294)

Checked default keychain

Problems were found; you should choose the Repair option to fix them

Verification failed

Repair started

Checking keychain configuration for Susan F (user ID=501)

Home directory is /Users/suero

Checked login keychain

Error: login keychain not found

Warning: some problems were not fixed

Repair failed

The machine is backed up onto a lacie external hard drive every hour.

In addition, while I was poking around I found the following:

com.apple.kerberos.kdc certificate

not trusted

com.apple.systemdefault certificate

not trusted

Could there be some malware at work? What can I do to get her files, home directory and everything back?

Thank you in advance for your patience with an old OS and a MAC user who does't feel comfortable mucking around under the hood.

Tracy

Message was edited by: TracyCV