Mac mini password forgotten

[sirnick]

friend has a mac mini and he has forgotten his password to login and he doesnt have the original disc to re install OS. Any help is very much appreciated.

 

[SNGX1275]

Reboot
Hold apple + s down after you hear the chime.
When you get text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account (hitting return after each line):

mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
shutdown -h now

After rebooting you should have a brand new admin account. When you login as the new admin you can simply delete the old one.

Stolen from here: http://gigaom.com/apple/reset-os-x-password-without-an-os-x-cd/

 

[sirnick]

thank you, i will give this a shot and post back the results.

 

[seanc]

You might not want to delete the old account, since it may contain your data, but you should be able to reset the password.

 

[sirnick]

This does not work on the mac mini i have. I tried several times but it keeps going straight to the login screen. Any other help would be appreciated.

 

[seanc]

Are you using an Apple branded keyboard?
Is it one of the slimline silver ones? Some of those aren't supported by early machines.

You may have to revert to one of the old apple pro keyboards or use a USB PC keyboard.

 

[sirnick]

if i revert to a PC keyboard which key would be considered the "Apple" or "Command" key? and yes it is the slimline silver one. But the keyboard works when i type in the password field, that command+s just doesnt do anything.

 

[sirnick]

Any suggestions?

 

[seanc]

I'd typed a reply on my phone yesterday, but couldn't post it.

The keyboard works once OS X has booted because Apple released software updates for OS X to make the keyboard work with it.

You'll need a PC keyboard or older Mac keyboard.
With a PC keyboard, I believe the alt key takes the place of the command key, if not it's the windows key.

 

[sirnick]

Used a PC keyboard and it worked. The windows key is the apple key. And this is funny, i got an old iMac G3 the other day and i had to reset it with these commands, but i used the slimline silver keyboard on the G3 and it worked LOL. Weird. Anyway thank you for the help, i really appreciate it!