Where is my Admin account? Account Preferences is blank. HELP!!

I've been having problems with starting up my G4 iBook lately.
Upon booting up, it automatically asks me to log into my non-admin account. My Administrator account is missing from the log in screen!
When I go to System Preferences > Accounts, it says it's "Loading accounts" and then my Accounts screen is blank!
I'd like to Repair Permissions in Disk Utillity however I'm unable to since only the Administrator account can do that.
Any advice? Thanks in advance.

Return to default desktop, apparent "loss" of home directory???
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107854
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
You can also repair permissions from there... at least some.

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Hi,
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Since about Tiger I've had two accounts on this Mac, an admin and a daily use account. My wife and I share the daily use (1), with the admin account (4) only logged in to when sudo won't do.
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mrtotes

Solution
After several further hours pondering/Googling:
1. Boot into Single User Mode
2. Type: mount - uw (sets write access on drive)
3. Type: rm /var/db/ .AppleSetupDone (removes the file that tells the iMac that setup is done
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my errors.
Regards,
mrtotes
P.S. Now looking at Firmware Password given how easy that was once I knew now.

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Hi Dyenera,
Follow these steps to hide a user from the Accounts pane in System Preferences:
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Try again.
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Can no longer access Accounts preference pane !

At home I work on an iMac. I’m the admin, each of my children have their own user account. While I was working in ‘System Preferences > Accounts’ to adjust some of the permissions on one of the accounts the power went down. Once the power was back on and I restarted the computer I found everything worked fine but the account I was working on has disappeared from the log in pane. When I log in under my admin account and try to access ‘System Preferences > Accounts’ by clicking “Accounts’, in stead of al list of all accounts I get a blank window. This means I can no longer manage any of the accounts, including my own.
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Hello Barry,
Thanks for taking the trouble to answer me.
We may have a language problem here (I’m working with a Dutch version of OSX).
Before I posted my question I checked the disk using ‘Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility.app’. Could this be the same program you’re referring to as ‘repair disk’ on the Install CD because on the Install disk I can find no program called ‘repair disk’ but I can find ‘Disk Utlilty.app’?
Disk Utlilty when I ran it couldn’t find anything wrong.
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Greetings,
If 1 user account has an issue but another does not then that would suggest something has changed in that user. Reinstalling has no effect on user specific issues (usually) as applications are usually system wide.
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However if you are feeling adventurous:
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Your User > Library > Caches (restart after pulling this to the trash)
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Dan, does it stat in Single User Mode? If so, we can get a new admin User.
applesetupdone...
This was Posted by: JoseAranda at September 9, 2006 3:48 AM
"OK, restart your computer, hold down Command-s and type in the following:
/sbin/fsck -fy Enter
/sbin/mount -uaw Enter
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone Enter
# The rm command is the remove command which deletes the file.
# Robert: I'd rename the file via: mv /var/db/.applesetupdone /var/db/.applesetupdone.old
reboot Enter
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end of posted by: JoseAranda"
Reset OS X Password Without an OS X CD...
http://theappleblog.com/2008/06/22/reset-os-x-password-without-an-os-x-cd/

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I have a Macbook Pro unibody and when I wake from sleep it doesnt find airport network. I have a Time Capsule with latest firmware.
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Here are 3 fixes that have worked for others.
1. Adding a new location has worked for some.
Go System Preferences > Network > Location.
Edit location (whatever name you want).
Click + and then click done.
2. And, here is another possibility that has worked for others.
Go Finder > Your HD > Library > Preferences > SystemConfiguration.
Move the SystemConfiguration folder to your Desktop.
Restart.
3. Variation on a theme.
Go Finder > Your HD > Library > Preferences > SystemConfiguration.
Move the SystemConfiguration folder to your Desktop.
Go System Preferences > Network > Delete all locations, and use Automatic.
Restart.
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8,955

Cannot Run Scans in non-admin account...

So, mymain accounton my Mac is not an administrator for security reasons, which is not a concern normally. When I need to install something or perform a fucntion that requires admin privileges, I am prompted for the account name and passwor. However, when I try to run a scan in OSX,. I am merely told that I need to be an administrator, but there is no prompt. Is there a way I can enable a prompt for admin credentials so I can run this scan with the proper permissions, other than making my account an admin or logging into the admin account separately? Many thanks in advance

Did some research on this the other day, to see if i could get Software Update to run in the middle of the night like Windows can do.
Software Update requires Root powers, so when you give it your Admin Password your opening a sudo window of 5 minutes for it to complete it's task.
Software Update doesn't check for updates while in Standard User becuase Standard Users supposedly can't do anything about it anyway and it would be a obvious distraction. "Mommy the computer....!!!"
Apple should have a option in Software update preferences to let certain Standard Users know a Software Update is ready just for the purpose your explaining. I run in Standard as well.
I ran some Software Update commands via the Terminal for a launchd just to see what I could do.
Apprantly one can DOWNLOAD updates automatically with launchd in Admin, but not install them because of the need for sudo.
I just misssed a perfect opoortunity (todays update) to run a launchd to do automatic downloads of Software update, then see how to go about installing them afterwards. So fsck me, I'll have to wait now. (unless i use my other machine! ahhh!!)
Anyway the program you want is this little gem: Lingon
it's on Sourceforge (grab the image)
Ok so that takes care of the Software update downloads (man softwareupdate in Terminal for commands)
/usr/sbin/softwareupdate --download --all
Will do the automatic downloads, now it's just a script away to let you know ( a nice pop up window) that you have something in your folder where the Software Update just downloaded into.
That's the next question is where that is and how to run it.

Run software update in non-admin account?

I did some searching through past posts, but the most recent one I found was several years old.
Is there any way to run Software Update automatically in a non-admin account? I run in a non-admin account unless there's some task that really needs admin privileges to complete, for security purposes, but having Software Update not run automatically is rather suboptimal for security.
So, is there any way to get Software Update to check for updates automatically from a non-admin account? (I'm not averse to using the crontab or launchd, if necessary—I've never done it before, but given instructions, I'm sure I could figure it out.
Thanks in advance!

Did some research on this the other day, to see if i could get Software Update to run in the middle of the night like Windows can do.
Software Update requires Root powers, so when you give it your Admin Password your opening a sudo window of 5 minutes for it to complete it's task.
Software Update doesn't check for updates while in Standard User becuase Standard Users supposedly can't do anything about it anyway and it would be a obvious distraction. "Mommy the computer....!!!"
Apple should have a option in Software update preferences to let certain Standard Users know a Software Update is ready just for the purpose your explaining. I run in Standard as well.
I ran some Software Update commands via the Terminal for a launchd just to see what I could do.
Apprantly one can DOWNLOAD updates automatically with launchd in Admin, but not install them because of the need for sudo.
I just misssed a perfect opoortunity (todays update) to run a launchd to do automatic downloads of Software update, then see how to go about installing them afterwards. So fsck me, I'll have to wait now. (unless i use my other machine! ahhh!!)
Anyway the program you want is this little gem: Lingon
it's on Sourceforge (grab the image)
Ok so that takes care of the Software update downloads (man softwareupdate in Terminal for commands)
/usr/sbin/softwareupdate --download --all
Will do the automatic downloads, now it's just a script away to let you know ( a nice pop up window) that you have something in your folder where the Software Update just downloaded into.
That's the next question is where that is and how to run it.

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sean

you can make a new password by reseting root/master password, boot from the install disk (hold down c on startup with the disk in the drive) and in the top left where it says installer ( the drop down menu bar) i think there is an option to change/reset the root/master password. if that works i think you just log in with username root and password whatever you set it to.
i think :?

Odd screen corruption only with admin account?

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Where is my Admin account? Account Preferences is blank. HELP!!

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