I just bought a mac iBook G4 from a guy and he left a password on it. i called him but he said that he forgot the password. can i some how bypass this password. he only gave me the laptop itself with no cd's or anything. it would be greatly appreciated if u cud help me.
(BTW plz use simple phrases b/c i dont understand these computer phrases)
Without the disks there is nothing you can do. Find out your model and operation system by going to the apple menu in the top left corner and select ABOUT THIS MAC. Read all the info. With that go to eBay and buy the disks you need. You will usually find it at a very reasonable price....and if you later believe you don't need it you can sell it back.
OK, it is true that you need the OS discs that came with the system of a new copy of leopard in order to fix the problem.
It's NOT true that you have to do a clean install. You do have options.
The free option is to make a Genius Bar Appointment at an Apple Store and have them do a password reset from their discs (has worked for people in the past but varies from store to store. I'd call first). Once the password has been reset, you can create a new user and delete the junk you don't need from the system.
If for some reason your local Genius Bar will not reset your password from their discs, you can Order a replacement set of discs from apple (1-800-APL-CARE) and they can send you the right discs for the machine most of the time after you explain the situation (Usually it's like, $30). It's great to have these in case you're OS gets really broken and you need to do an archive and install.
If your system can run Leopard, I'd suggest getting the install disc ($129 most places) and then once booted off of the install disc, select your language and from the Utilities drop-down menu, select Password reset to reset user passwords. Then you can archive and install to upgrade the system to leopard (see system requirements).
If you have leopard installed on the system you can reset the password without the disc:
1. Boot into single user mode (press Command-S at power on)
2. Type fsck -fy
3. Type mount -uw /
4. Type launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
5. Type dscl . -passwd /Users/username password, replacing username with the targeted 6. user and password with the desired password.
7. Reboot
It really depends on how much you want to invest in the machine. If you just want acces to the machine, go the free route. If you want to be able to protect yourself from future problems, get the discs so you can archive and install from the restore media. If your system can take it though, I'd go the Leopard route.
