Reset password for a restored volume????? Please Help...

Question

Hi fellow mac addicts.
I had to back-up my HD and now I just restored it to an external Firewire HD.
When I went to boot from it by choosing it as the start-up disk, everything went well. But before it the finder came up, I was greeted with a user name and password dialog box. I tried everything I could remember to have it continue to load, but obviously I didn't have the right combination. I then booted from the system install disk to reset the password. The external HD was listed, but when I chose it, it ghosted the option to reset password.
I don't know what I can do from here in order to boot to my desktop.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated,
Thank you in advance.
Eddy

Answer 1

Eddy, I'm getting the picture. Your only available copy of your data is on your external drive, and you are using another (someone else's?) Mac. You want to boot from the external so it's "your system" even though a different computer. Right?
Would another account on the Mac work for you? You'd startup from the Mac internal drive, log in to your own account there, separate from the owner's account, and could access all your files.
If the only way to get yourself up and going is to boot from the expernal, here's what to do. Be careful, be sure you are booted from the external disk, be sure to follow the advice on naming the new account. Mistakes can cause data loss.
Startup with the option key and select the external drive. Immediately hold Apple-S until you get to a commmand prompt.
type mount -uw /
to mount the external disk for use, then ls -la /Users to check that you are booted from the disk you think you are.
type cd /var/db/netinfo
to go to the directory that holds the user database. You are going to delete the database, but instead of irrevocably killing it, let's rename it so you have an option to backtrack.
Type mv local.nidb old.nidb
Then we'll force the setup assistant to run at the next boot.
Type cd ../
Type rm .AppleSetupDone
Note the filename has a period as the first character.
Type shutdown -h now
Reboot with the option key; select the external drive. It'll boot into the setup assistant -- a little movie and song, then the setup process. Make a new account with a name that's NOT Eddy or Eddy <Anything>. Call it "Admin" for example.
Complete the setup process and wait for the desktop. I don't know where your backed up files are, but if they were in the Eddy account or at the root level of the disk, you should be able to access them.
If you have permissions problems or other trouble, let us know.
John