It took be forever to find this, and I thought it might help some people.

My brother has an eMac, and I set it up for him. Recently he needed the admin password (there's only one account on the computer), but he had forgotten it. I couldn't remember it either. He also couldn't find the OS X installation CD, which is what you'd usually use to boot from to reset an account's password.

Here's what I got him to do:

1. Note the short name of your user account. Let's say its 'johncitizen'
2. Restart your computer, and hold down command+S
3. After a quick startup into a DOS like screen, once you get a prompt, enter 'sh /etc/rc' and press return
4. At the next prompt, enter 'passwd johncitizen' and press return. It will ask you for the new password. It won't show it as you type, so enter it carefully. It'll ask you to confirm it again.
5. Finally, type 'reboot' and hit return. Voila.

Note - don't do this with a FileVault protected account, or you'll lose all account data!

Cheers

Or...
1. Create a new user account, by going into System Preferences and adding a second account.
2. Make sure you select "User can adminster this computer"
3. Log into the new account, go into Sys. Prefs. again, and delete original admin account.
4. Away you go.

Stewie

stewie: how does that help fix it, if you dont have the admin password?

Your way , you get to keep the original admin account.
My way doesn't. You just replace it.
If you need to keep the original account with prefs set up apps installed etc then yours is a good way to accomplish that for sure. Mine is more for if you have nothing or not much setup in the original account then deleting it will not lose anything of substance.
Either way you don't need a CD or DVD to accomplish this. Depends on your setup I guess.
Case in point . I bought a Pismo a while back that came with Tiger on it and no OS install discs. I don't have Tiger and I wanted to install some more apps to try them out on a computer running Tiger before I went and bought a retail version so I could upgrade my other computers. I couldn't load any apps without the admin password so I did the above trick and was able to load all my apps.

Stewie

I think the point was that you can't take this first step without the original password.
Had a mate in a similar pozzie lately and wish I'd had symean's advice at the time.


mct

EDIT: wrong nickname changed

That's right. To create a new account, it asks for your existing admin password.

Ok, I'm trying to reset my Mum's password. G3 bubble - OS 10.3.9

tried the above step but got this:

localhost/root# sh /etc/rc
/etc/rc: line 28: $1: unbound variable

Um , I just tried my method on my Wallstreet running Jaguar and no , it didn't ask for the admin. password.
Maybe it's different for Panther , Tiger & Leopard ?
I'll try it later on my Pismo with Panther to make sure. Hang on I have done that already and it works.


Edit: I have automatic login enabled on all my computers so when I turn the computer on I don't have to piss around entering my password. It just starts up in the user account that last used the computer. If you don't have this enabled , then yes you would need the admin password to get past the login screen.

Stewie

I tried a few different things to fix my forgotten (or corrupted) admin password. Here are the steps that I found that worked for an iMac G3 running OS 10.3.9 ...

Restart your computer, hold down Command-S. This puts you into single-user mode, where the monitor displays text rather than the usual Mac-OS graphical interface (known as a command-line interface (unix). Eg. localhost/root#

Now type in the following:
/sbin/fsck -y Enter
/sbin/mount -uaw Enter
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone Enter
reboot Enter

# The rm command is the remove command which deletes the user account file.
Don't worry you will be presented next with the OS account setup - big splash screen that gives the impression that your about to reinstall the whole OS - but NO you will just be creating a new admin-user account.

The new user account then launches and from there, accessing System Prefs > User Accounts as the admin-user, you can reset any other user account preferences (change the user status, limitations and passwords). Note, you need to log-out of any other user accounts before you can reset their account preferences.

Lastly, if you are concerned about security this link appears to suggest steps that prevent anyone booting up in single-user mode without a password.