On Oct 13, 2010, at 12:02 AM, a1 wrote: > I acquired G4 imac with Panther already installed. I have Panther > disks and wish to reinstall with a clean installation. However, the > password on this admin acct on this machine is lost---and the imac > isnt even letting me boot from cd. I made myself another user acct--in > Jaguar one can allocate admin permissions but somehow this mac didnt > allow for that---only "standard" acct. So now I am even locked out of > the admin user acct. > > How can I boot from cd and install fresh over the previous admin acct? > I really do not wish to dig in there and extract the HD.
Is it asking for a password when you attempt to boot from CD? If it is then the Firmware password is active and changing the HD won't help. You need to reset the Firmware Password. To do this open it up and remove one memory stick then start up and do a PRAM zap (hold down Command-Option-P-R just after starting up). Basically by removing (adding or moving will work) some memory you are telling the boot process you have physical access to the guts of the machine and therefore you have the authority to remove the password. If it isn't asking for a Firmware Password then it sounds like you may have a problem with your CD drive. Have you tried holding down the option key at boot? Clark Martin Redwood City, CA, USA Macintosh / Internet Consulting "I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway" -- You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to imaclist@googlegroups.com To leave this group, send email to imaclist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist
