Resetting Password in Mac Lion OS X 10.7

how to reset password on Macintosh?

One of the most frequently asked questions that I receive from my readers is ‘how to reset the password in my Mac Lion OS X 10.7?’ To be true there are several ways to do and they are pretty easy too.

Previously Macintosh had published an article that was very popular to reset passwords in the Lion OS of 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6. But there is no walk through provided by Mac to reset the password for the 10.7. But does that mean you are doomed? Not exactly, you can still reset the password by following the instructions mentioned in this article.

Moreover there is high odds that anyone can who gains access to your computer can easily steal the content. But if you are looking for higher security level then you should encrypt all your files and place them in the FileVault. This has been discussed in our previous article and therefore you can find it from there how to encrypt your file and have them safe so that no one can really get their hands on your files.

Resetting Password

If you had purchased a brand new Macintosh with the Lion pre installed in it then it comes with a separate partition that is meant for recovery purposes. This partition has various tools which can be used for recovering the lost password in your Mac. Below it is mentioned to your benefit.

First you will have to shut down your Macintosh. After few second boot on your Mac by holding down the command and the R key at the same time. This will allow you to access the recovery option that has been pre installed in your OS.

There will be a menu bar and from that select terminal.

When a terminal window appears type in the exact words ‘resetpassword’, and then presses enter.

Later use this utility to choose the user name and account and select the new password.

Alternative method

As in the previous method shut down the computer. Now open it with the help of pressing down the command key with the S key. You will see a black screen with some white texts. This mode is known as single user mode.

There will be an analysis of your hard disk but you can skip it. However, it is recommended that you do not skip this step. When prompted type fsck-fy and then press enter.

Once the checking of your disk space is done type mount –uw / and then press enter.

Type this command:  launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist and after press Enter button.

Later type Is/Users and then hit enter. As soon as you hit enter all the user names will be listed that has been used in your Macintosh.

Choose the username for which you would like to change the password. Then change the password and then later hit enter. You will get an error message. Finally type ‘reboot’ and press enter. There you have changed it.

Want to know how to encrypt time machine passwords? click on the link. Enjoy! http://www.mkmac.com

Tags: Macintosh OS X