Lost administrator password, upgrade osx- boot from firewire?

Hi- I have an old g3 running OS X 10.3.9. I no longer have the administrator password. I also have another g3 running 10.4.11 and the startup disks that came with that (don't know which version of OS X came with that computer- probably 10.3.something) as well as an external drive that has a backup of the computer with 10.4.11. What I'd like to do is to upgrade the g3 that is currently running 10.3.9 to a later version so that I can run a later version of itunes. Can anyone tell me if there is a way to do this? If need be I could probably buy a copy of OS 10.4. if I have to. Thanks. -Howard

You could probably check the specifications of the computers
against their availability to run specific system software, from
the online information from http://everymac.com/ or go and
see if you can use a download of MacTracker's database.
• MacTracker - http://mactracker.ca
You have to be more specific with each Mac as the parts
and software needed to repair or upgrade them changed
over time, and the product updates limit compatibility.
• computer info - by serial number - service:
http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html
A retail install disc of whatever appropriate later OS X
version that the computer hardware you have can use
would have to be purchased from individuals or from
resellers on auction sites or computer user sites; or a
chance find on a local craigslist. If you know of a local
Apple User Group, maybe someone went to a school
auction and got a truckload of old Macs & software(?)
The items you may need could be hiding in someones
garage or garden shed; sadly, some get tossed away.
Hopefully you can help re-cycle them - as computers.
When you upgrade the OS in an older computer, the
RAM quality & amount, and hard drive, should be
upgraded to support these greater hardware demands.
Good luck & happy computing!

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Can't log in with valid password, can't boot from disk, can't access disk utility, in single user mode can't reset password as appears locked in caps mode with '?' for forward slash, can anyone help?

Can't log in with valid password, can't boot from disk, can't access disk utility, in single user mode can't reset password as appears locked in caps mode with '?' for forward slash, can anyone help?

Which keyboard layout you were using? German, French ... I suppose your layout is reset to the default: US and you are unable to find the "?" or "/" ...
Please have a look into the keyboard viewer, to see how the layout of your keyboard is actually.
marek

My iMac (late 2006) no longer boots from FireWire drives, although they contain all the system files.

My iMac (late 2006) no longer starts (boots) from Firewire drives, although they all contain a current system (Mac OS X 10.6.7). If the drives are connected with USB 2, they boot normally. The FireWire drives appear in the Start Volume program, but they do not boot. If I press and hold the Alt key while booting, only the internal drives and the USB drives appear as options. What can I do in order to boot from FireWire drives as I always could in the past?

I'd first recommend doing a SMC reset and if that doesn't work refer to:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10333969-263.html
and
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/firewiretroubleshooting.html
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

Boot from FireWire External Drive WITHOUT mounting internal Hard Drive

Is it possible too boot a PowerBook G4 over FireWire (this part works) WITHOUT mounting the internal hard drive at boot time - i.e. never mount the internal hard drive when booting from FireWire?
There is an Oreilly article at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/h/341 which discusses using "niutil" but it is not clear how to indicate the internal hard drive should not be mounted.
The boot from FireWire works fine but how do you tell Mac OS X to ignore and never mount the internal hard drive? There used to be an /etc/fstab file where you could specify drives to mount. The /etc/fstab.hd file comments now say "IGNORE THIS FILE.
This file does nothing, contains no useful data, and might go away in
future releases. Do not depend on this file or its contents."
Thanks,

That is not the problem - I have been using the startup manager by holding down the option key during boot-up. I am having no problem getting the PowerBook to boot from the FireWire Drive.
*The Problem* is that after the PowerBook has booted from the exernal FireWire drive, I still see the internal hard drive of the PowerBook on the desktop. I do not want this. Some key points to note:
[1] I can unmount the interal hard drive and remove from the desktop only by using the Disk Utility in the Applications/Utilities folder. There is a button there to "unmount selected volume"
[2] The finder does not have an icon next to the internal hard drive icon to allow the internal hard drive to be unmounted when booted from a FireWire drive
[3] I want the MacOS X kernel to be configured to not automount any hard drive volumes at bootup - this used to be possible by editing the /etc/fstab.hd file but that file does not appear to be used any more per the commennts in the file.
**Remaining Question** How do you configure the MacOS X kernel to prevent it from mounting any other hard drive at boot time? I do not want to use methods [1] or [2]
Thanks

Booting from FireWire Drive

I have a LaCie 160MB (F A Porsche style) external firewire drive.
I have been able to create a bootable clone of my iBook HD using Disk Utility and the Restore function.
I have been able to create a bootable partition by installing the System Software onto it.
But I have not had success using SilverKeeper or SuperDuper! Does anybody know why? I would really like to use the features of one (or another if available) of these applications.
Thanks.
-Ted

Below is LaCie's Tech Support Reply. What is interesting is that they suggest Carbon Copy Cloner (instead of Silverkeeper). Also interesting is that it worked. I hope this helps some of you.
Ted
Hi Ted--
Thanks for contacting LaCie Technical Support. All of our firewire
drives can be used as boot volumes. Due to differences in operating
systems and Macs, we are unable to provide support for booting from
firewire drives other than the following information:
1. Make sure the Mac is bootable via firewire. All Macs with built-in
firewire can be booted from an external drive except:
-Blue and White G3s
-PCI-Graphics G4s. This can be determined by looking in the Apple
System Profiler. The PCI Graphics G4s use the same motherboard as the
B&W, except with a G4 processor shoehorned in.
2. The drive must be connected to a native port. It will not work if
the drive is connected to an add-on card.
3. The Mac must have the latest firmware installed. The proper updater
can be found and downloaded from here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117
Download and read the instructions carefully. It is possible to kill a
Mac if the update is interrupted. Then, perform the update. If the
firmware is already current, the updater will report this.
4. Format the drive fresh using either Apple's Disk Utility in OS X or
Silverlining in OS 9. Use the Mac OS Extended (HFS+) format only.
(Journaling may be enabled on OS 10.3.)
5. If making an OS 9 boot drive, you can just copy the System Folder
over to the root of the boot volume. To be bootable, the System Folder
must be blessed, i.e. has a happy Mac face on it. If it does not, you
can try to force it to bless by removing the Finder from the folder and
moving it to the root. Then, move the Finder back. The folder should
now be blessed. If not, then there is probably an issue with the System
Folder.
6. In making an OS X boot drive, the ONLY two recommended solutions
are:
--install from the OS X install disk, preferably the one which came with
the Mac. You will not be able to make a successful boot drive using an
older disk set. A newer disk set should also be fine.
--use a utility, such as Carbon Copy Cloner, to perform a copy of an
existing OS X install. It is not possible to do this manually. There
are issues with permissions, hidden files, and files in use that cannot
be manually overridden. If you are using a disk image, you will still
need to use a utility, such as Carbon Copy Cloner, to copy the files out
from the image to the root of the new boot volume. A simple drag and
drop will not include the necessary hidden files, such as the boot
loader and the kernel.
If the volume does not appear as a Start Up Disk, try booting with the
Option key held down and see if the drive shows in the boot drive
selection screen.
If the volume does not show, or the kernel panics on boot, chances are
the OS install was not performed properly.
In general, CD/DVD drives are not bootable via firewire, but will work
under certain circumstances, usually booting from OS X to OS X. They
should not be relied upon as such. To boot from one, hold down the
Option key while booting. If the boot CD shows on the screen, you may
select it and continue the boot.

Old IMAC with 10.5.6 OSX. Forgot Administrator password. Started up from OSX install disc 1 and selected password reset from utilies in Installer. But HD icon doesn't show up. (Only install disc and admin root available:no good). What can I do?

Old IMAC with 10.5.6 OSX. Forgot Administrator password (which I had already changed.) Followed instructions as per http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1274
Started up from the original OSX install disc 1 and selected "Password reset" from "utilies" in Installer. But HD icon doesn't show up. (Only install disc and admin root available:no good as the support website underscores: Important: Do not select "System Administrator (root)". This is actually the root user. You should not confuse it with a normal administrator account.).
What can I do?
Thanks for your suggestions. Antonio

Not familiar with that version of OS X but try using Terminal and type in resetpassword. If that brings up a password reset screen is your original username shown?

Booted from firewire external disk, internet slow

Hi,
My iMac is currently being booted from external disk via Firewire 800. I have to do this until I receive new install disks from apple to resore my machine.
The computer is usable, however internet is very slow... I have other devides, windows machine, ipad, iphone and they all run okay.
It seems that because I have booted via the external disk..... internet is slow. Could this be as the OS is needed to refer to the external disk?
Any suggestions to correct this please?
thanks
Mark

I need to restore from a time machine backup - full system restore, only possible from orignial install disks supplied with my imac apparently.
The bootable external disk , is actually the orignial boot disk, however has disk problems - SMART warning, and when trying to restore this disk to the new installed disk, it fails.
I can only boot from it, and run some of the apps on it.
I know that it seems strange that I have slow internet, but it seems to be the case.
Internet seems to pause lots of times, I wonder if its something to do with tmp files on the external disk.
I have tried downloading Lion to upgrade and use this as a method of getting a bootable system, but Lion has been downloading for 3 days, and I have had to abort a couple of times.
It does seem odd, but cant think of anything else.

Lost Administrative Password and Have to update my flash player. How Can I get around this for updates?

Sure needing help here. I've lost my administrative password on my mac and have to update my adobe flash player. I've researched several, seemingly (to me) complicated ways around this. Does anyone have an easy solution. Really need this back up and running! Thanks in advance.

This password prompt is presented by your operating system, and is intended to keep you from accidentally installing software.
If this is your personal machine and you don't need a password to log into the computer when it first starts up, you can probably leave the password blank and click OK to get past this prompt. If this is your personal machine and your normal password isn't working, check to make sure that CAPS LOCK is off, and type the password carefully.
If this is your work machine and it's asking for an Administrator password, well, you'll need to have a conversation with your friendly IT person.
If you're still stumped, you may need to reset the password on your Mac:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18653
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14325
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201240

Boot from Firewire

Can I boot from an external Firewire disk? If so, does it have to meet an specific requirement?
Thank you
Ngr

Hi, Ngr -
Can I boot from an external Firewire disk?
Yes.
If so, does it have to meet an specific requirement?
Only if you are booting to some version of OS 9, in which case the volume (volume = an unpartitioned drive, or a partition of a partitioned drive) must not exceed about 190GB. If you are booting to OSX, that volume limitation does not apply.
And, the drive needs to be formatted appropriately - for most instances Mac OS Extended (also called HFS+) is the best choice.

Re: Old G4 won't boot from firewire drive

I am having the same problem with one I just received today. I have the AGP one but it will not but off of the firewire drive. Any insights on this?

Hi, stupidipodnano -
Okay -
The firewire drive shows on the desktop, so there is nothing wrong with the Mac's hardware or the hardware for the drive.
The drive's size, and the OS on it, are not incompatible (OS 9 can not boot from volumes larger that 200GB, but neither of those conditions pertain here).
That leaves the issue of the installation of the OS.
• If the OS (OSX 10.4.x) was installed while the drive was connected to a different model Mac, it is probably a model-specific install of the OS, and thus not capable of booting a different model.
• If the OSX Install CD used is one that came with a different model, and not a retail one, that, too, would result in a non-bootable OS. The disks that come with a Mac are model-specific to that particular model and its hardware.
• If the OS was copied from another source, rather than actually installed using the installer program, that, too, usually results in a non-bootable installation.
What format is the firewire drive? You can determine that by doing a Get Info on the icon of the mounted drive.
Did you reformat (initialize) the drive after gettting it? ...or did you go ahead and use it 'as-is' as soon as you got it? If you did not re-initialize it, it would be a good idea to do so. Note that this will erase everything on the drive.

Question:how to find administrator password using OSX?

How can you find administrator password when you lose it caused by an error?

Forgot Your Account Password
For Lion/Mountain Lion
    Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     When the menubar appears select Terminal from the Utilities menu.
     Enter resetpassword at the prompt and press RETURN. Follow
     instructions in the dialog window that will appear.
     Or see Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password, OS X Mountain Lion- Reset a login password, and
     OS X Lion- Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password.
For Snow Leopard and earlier with installer DVD
     Mac OS X 10.6- If you forget your administrator password
For Snow Leopard and earlier without installer DVD
    How to reset your Mac OS X password without an installer disc | MacYourself

Lost administrative password

Lost my administrative user account password, can anyone PLEASE help.

Hi, If you're running Windows 8/8.1 and you normally sign-on with an email and password, you can reset the password via another PC from the Microsoft page on the following link. https://account.live.com/password/reset Regards, DP-K

Can't boot from firewire drive

Howzit,
I have partitioned an OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro 1.5 TB firewire drive into 2 partitions using Disk Utility and GUID mapping. I then used Carbon Copy Clone to clone the startup disk of my MacPro, which runs OS 10.4.11. The clone successfully boots when it is connected to the MacPro.
The problem is that I am unable to boot from the firewire drive when I hook it up to my iMac. When I restart and hold the OPTION key, the clone appears as a startup option, but the computer freezes when I click on it. The clone also shows up as an option in the Startup Disk preference, but when I try restarting after selecting the clone, it freezes the same way: gray screen, no apple, no rotating gear.
Can you help?

Make an OS partition then for each. Or, upgrade your Mac Pro to SL as well. Unless there is software holding you to Tiger.
Now, when SL came out, I know I saw a lot of threads regarding issues booting from external firewire drives, so you may not be 100% out of the woods, but you should.
I'd expect to get a panic screen from 10.4, lacks any support for newer hardware / graphics card and more.

Problem booting from firewire

I have a brand new ibook running Tiger and a brand new Maxtor OneTouch II that supports USB/Firewire 400/800Mbs
I use Retrospect software that comes with Maxtor OneTouch drive with the drivers for Tiger. I really like this software and it works great. I had duplicated my internal hd into my external drive and I was able to boot to it. I love that!
Since I upgraded to the latest revision of Tiger 10.4.3 I cannot boot from my firewire external drive anymore.
I already duplicated all my internal hd to my external firewire drive. Everything looks good, meaning, I can access the drive, read/write. If I boot my ibook pressing the 'option' key, it recognizes my external drive and the Disk utility knows it is a bootable drive.
So, when I select my external firewire drive to boot, I get the circle with a slash.
Now, I've search already for this and I found some people that had the same problem. However, that didn't help me since the issue here is different since I'm not using different Mac OS versions or drives. Everything is the same and it was working before with Mac OS X 10.4.2.
Any help would be appreciated.

Is there anything useful in this article?
(9617)
This article helped me to find out a few things.
Retrospect software is not able to clone a 10.4.3 HD. It complains about the target disk is ignoring permissions. I didn't have time yet to change that and test it. So, Retrospect might work after that change.
However, without change anything I'm able to clone my HD using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper.
So, I believe Dantz should be working on a new patch for Retrospect to duplicate the files as it used to work on Mac OS X 10.4.2.
Thanks for the article. That gave me a push to dig more.

Boot from Firewire External, OS 9.2, Lombard 400 with OrangeLink card?

I have a Lombard 400, running 9.2.1 with an OrangeLink Card. I have a Firewire external drive with a bootable 10.3.9 drive cloned to it. I have sucessfully booted from this drive to clone the drive to another powerbook I have, so I know it is bootable. The firewire drive shows up on the desktop of the Lombard and I can choose it as the startup disk in the control panel. However, when I restart the computer, it boots back into OS 9. What step am I missing here? I read documentation that the Firewire card is okay for booting.

Amy,
Unfortunately you cannot boot through a FireWire PC card; it does not have the onboard firmware necessary to initialize at startup as does built-in FireWire. In addition, it does require supporting software and this does not load until the OS loads. The only bootable external drive would be a pure SCSI HD or an ATA/IDE HD in a case that uses a SCSI interface.
There is one possible alternative which I have never tried, but the application XPostFacto, used to install OSX on unsupported machines, can be used as a "helper" to boot an external FW drive through a PC card. How well this works I just don't know...
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/

Lost administrator password, upgrade osx- boot from firewire?

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