I have recently aquired a second hand imac, however I am un-able to re-install the OS because access is denied due to previous passwords. I have tried strating up from the OS but with no luck, any suggestions???
Anonymous
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It seems to me that a previous owner has set an open firmware password to prevent people booting of an OS X CD and resetting the admin password.
IIRC the way to break this is to add or remove a stick of RAM but it may be worth googling this in case im wrong
Moros
If you hold down command-option-P-R at startup, and continue to hold them down for 3 - 5 successive boot chimes, won't that reset all the OF and PRAM settings back to default?
Cheers,
The Czar
boot to single user mode... and see who the users are...
s
then when you get to the prompt,
ls /Users
the names of the directories there are likely the user names... so just reset the passwords for one of the users (hopefully, an administrator login)
passwd (user name)
and you will be prompted to enter a new password for that user
after... just exit
let the system complete the boot
and log in as that user with the new password, create a new account for yourself, make yourself the admin... and you're good
You mention a password prompt, when does this prompt appear? When the computer is first started up? Or when the OS is loading/has loaded?
If the former, that's the hardware OpenFirmware password, which is reset by adding or subtracting a stick of RAM, then rebooting the Mac. If the latter, the OS-level password is reset from an OS install CD/DVD using the included PW reset utility. I forget the exact method, but once the CD's installer has launched poke around the available menus for the "reset password" (or simliar) command.
dan k