Can't Get Anywhere on my Computer!! I have Finals in a Week!!!

When you turn on your computer, does it bring up the login screen?

Do you have FileVault encryption turned on by any chance?

From what I can tell, this sort of issue usually crops up when FielVault is involved. Are there any other accounts on your computer? If not, the only other option I can think of at the moment is to hook it up to another Mac using Target Disk Mode in order to fuss with it. If this isn't an option, and given the urgency of your request, you may want to look into finding an Authorized Service location and bring it in.

The problem would likely be carried over. If you have an external hard drive big enough, you certainly should back it up before we try to fix anything, just in case something goes haywire. If you can boot into the recovery partition of your computer, we should be able to do everything we need there.

To back it up,

1. Boot into the recovery partition by holding down Command-R while you turn on the computer, and don't release them until you see the apple logo.
2. Open Disk Utility.
3. Plug in your external drive (make sure it is large enough.)
4. Select the indented partition (called "Macintosh HD" by default).
5. Click the Restore tab.
6. Make sure that "Macintosh HD" is in the Source field, then drag the external hard drive to the Destination field.

NOTE: This will completely erase the external hard drive and replace the contents with an exact duplicate of your computer's hard drive, so make sure ther eis no important data on your external hard drive.

7. Click the Restore button.

To unlock your hard drive (back it up first, if you can):

NOTE: If you find that the disk is not locked, as I am expecting it to be, reply to this thread and we'll figure something else out.

1. Boot into the recovery partition by holding down Command-R while you turn on the computer, and don't release them until you see the apple logo.
2. Open Disk Utility.
3. Select the Disk that is indented, it will be "Macintosh HD" by default, unless it was renamed for some reason.
4. Under the File menu, click on Unlock "<disk name>" and enter your password when prompted.
5. After unlocking the disk, click Verify Disk and repair them if necessary.
6. Then click Verify Disk Permissions and repair them if necessary.
7. Restart your computer and attempt to log in.

(Watching Netflix? Finals are next week? Tsk tsk. 😉)

Edited to add directions for backing up the disk, like I suggested. (silly me.)

Actually, i just remembered another way to copy your startup disk. Don't worry about making another partition on your external drive. Instead, select the startup disk and click New Image at the top of the window, then choose to save the image to the external drive. I'd recommend saving it as a Read/Write format, just to be safe.

That was fast. How big does it say the image is?