The following post comes from The Tech Advisors (http://thetechadvisors.wordpress.com/ (http://thetechadvisors NULL.wordpress NULL.com/)), which is a great Mac resource.  TGM reposts this for the benefit of those TGM readers who use Mac’s.  With a special Thanks to Alex Hwang at The Tech Advisors for letting me share.

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From the Tech Advisors Post (http://thetechadvisors.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/how-to-get-into-your-mac-when-youre-locked-out/ (http://thetechadvisors NULL.wordpress NULL.com/2009/08/05/how-to-get-into-your-mac-when-youre-locked-out/))

I’m sure we’ve all been the situation when we’ve forgotten a password. No biggie, just press the “Oh! I forgot my password” link below the sign-in box, right? Well, yes, if it’s just a web page. Now, if you’re locked out of you’re Mac, that’s a toughie to get out of. Either you bring it to apple or hack your way in. I’m going to show you how to hack your way in.

I’m using the term “hack” loosely, as I’m just going to detail how to reset your password on your Mac; I will show another way after this which involves creating another user account.

Concerning Resetting Password on 10.5 Leopard

If you have been unfortunately locked out of your wonderful new Mac running 10.5 Leopard, here’s how to reset your password on it.

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1. Power on or restart your Mac.
2. At the chime (or grey screen if your chime is turned off (http://www NULL.macyourself NULL.com/2008/10/17/keep-your-macs-volume-settings-and-startup-chime-under-control/)), hold down Command+S on your keyboard to enter single-user mode. [After this you should see black and white letters running down through your screen like you're a hacker]
3. This step is optional, but it’s a good idea because it checks the consistency of the hard disk before moving on. At the prompt, type fsck -fy and press Enter/Return. Wait for the checks to complete before going to the next step.
4. Type mount -uw / and press Enter. [Mounts the startup disk]
5. Type launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plistand press Enter.
6. Type ls /Users and press Enter. This lists all of the usernames on the computer – helpful if you don’t know or remember what these are.
7. Type dscl . -passwd /Users/username password and replace “username” with one of the users displayed in the previous step. Replace “password” with a new password of your choice. Press Enter.
8. Type reboot and press Enter.

“

[Macyourself tutorial (http://www NULL.macyourself NULL.com/2009/08/03/how-to-reset-your-mac-os-x-password-without-an-installer-disc/)]

Concerning Resetting Password on 10.4 Tiger

Be careful to remember that resetting the passwords on these two different operating systems have different instructions, so don’t mix them up. [unless you want to potentially destroy your system]

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1. Power on or restart your Mac.
2. At the chime (or grey screen if your chime is turned off), hold down Command+S on your keyboard to enter single-user mode.
3. Type sh /etc/rc and press Enter/Return.
4. Type passwd username and replace “username” with the short name of the user account for which you’d like to reset the password.
5. Type your desired password and press Enter. It won’t show itself on the screen, so be careful what you type. You will most likely have to enter it again to confirm.
6. Type reboot and press Enter.

[Macyourself tutoria (http://www NULL.macyourself NULL.com/2009/08/03/how-to-reset-your-mac-os-x-password-without-an-installer-disc/)l]

“

If you don’t want to mess around with command-line password resetting,

don’t. The ways detailed above are much faster than creating a whole new account and registering a new account. Anyways, you still must use the command line to delete the systems files Mac OS reads during startup, and that could be catastrophic, even resulting in your computer not being able to start up. But, if you want to, just read the article I’ve hyperlinked twice above. [Macyourself tutoria (http://www NULL.macyourself NULL.com/2009/08/03/how-to-reset-your-mac-os-x-password-without-an-installer-disc/)l].

If you want all this stuff good and printed so it’s ready in your desk whenever you need it, (ahh)

I’ve created a pdf with this info. It’s located here: [Click Here (http://dl NULL.getdropbox NULL.com/u/529804/Macresetpassword NULL.pdf)]

Well, that’s it! Just remember to use your new-found power wisely and not on a computer that’s not your own because that’s… hacking! Thanks for reading and please rate this post!