mikeaag Posted September 5, 2009 Share Posted September 5, 2009 hey all, this is the situation - my boss as been given an iBook G4 from a friend. it belonged to his son who passed away. we dont have the password for it, but its already logged on, so we were able to do what the person wanted. now we need to give it back to them, but we need to set the password so they will be able to use it again. I have used a mac about 3 times before this, so i have no idea what im doing. The OS is Mac OS X 10.3.9 which im lead to believe is Panther. I have looked a little bit online and seen that it can be done with the CD, but all we have is the laptop. Can anyone help me reset the password. Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted September 5, 2009 Veteran Share Posted September 5, 2009 If you?re already logged in to the admin account, create a new admin account in Accounts Preferences. From here, you can just use the new account or reset the password for the current one from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeaag Posted September 5, 2009 Author Share Posted September 5, 2009 thanks for the reply giga. Would it be possibly for you to explain for me how exactly i do this? as i said, i dont use mac's so i have no idea how everything works. or point me in the direction of something where i can find the info :D thanks again :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted September 5, 2009 Veteran Share Posted September 5, 2009 Apple icon -> System Preferences. Click Accounts. Bottom left is a + icon. Click it and make a new admin account. (assuming you are logged in already as an admin) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeaag Posted September 5, 2009 Author Share Posted September 5, 2009 fanstastic :D are you 100% sure that i will be able to change the password of the account from the new admin account? as i dont want to log out of the account and then find i cant change the password, or get back into the account :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted September 5, 2009 Veteran Share Posted September 5, 2009 I don?t have a Panther install to be 100% sure, but I?m pretty confident about it since I can do it in 10.5 and 10.6. Admin accounts can alter other admin accounts. To test it, try and change the password of the admin account you just created. Try and remove it. You should be able to. (either way, you?d still be able to use the computer since you created a new account) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeaag Posted September 5, 2009 Author Share Posted September 5, 2009 thanks for the reply. lets say it doesnt work, and i cant get back into the account, will i still be able to access all the data from the new admin account or is that blocked out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted September 5, 2009 Veteran Share Posted September 5, 2009 Should be able to. Enable fast user switching (click ?Login Options? in the screenshot above. Once enabled, the fast user switch menu will be in the top right of your menu bar) and give it a shot. You won?t be logged out of the current account this way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeaag Posted September 5, 2009 Author Share Posted September 5, 2009 You Sir, are AMAZING! I will get my boss to try this and i'll let you know if we have any problems :D Thanks again for all the help, really appreciate it XD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessy Ger Posted September 5, 2009 Share Posted September 5, 2009 thank for your t?ps i need it today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeaag Posted September 11, 2009 Author Share Posted September 11, 2009 Ok, so I've been away for a couple of days and I've just got back into the office and I'm trying what you said now. I've created a new account on the machine, and I have made it an admin account as well. I enabled fast user switching and went into the new user. I don't seem to be able to select the other account that I want to change the password for though. I'm thinking I need to logout of the other account in order to start playing around with its settings. Where am I going wrong? Edit: Bad times! I cant get back into the main user account, its asking for a password! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted September 11, 2009 Veteran Share Posted September 11, 2009 You can?t select the other account? Is there a lock in the bottom left corner of the window?click it and make sure its unlocked. Edit: Just restart and try again from the new account, since you can?t access it anyway. Don?t worry you should still have access to the files on the computer since it?s an admin account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeaag Posted September 11, 2009 Author Share Posted September 11, 2009 thanks for the reply giga. I restarted the machine and it logged in fine and i manage to change the password to the account. When i changed the password it came up with a message saying that the keychain password for the account will remain the same. I did a quick google on what keychain is and it seems to be some sort of password manager. how do I go about resetting the password for keychain? Thanks in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted September 11, 2009 Veteran Share Posted September 11, 2009 You?ll need to reset it. (basically create a new login keychain) http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1544 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeaag Posted September 11, 2009 Author Share Posted September 11, 2009 Thanks for the reply :D I think i have reset it now :p Is there anything else you can think of that i might need to do after changing the account password or am i done now? everything seems to be working :D Thanks again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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