0

After a power shortage a Mac with El Capitan installed, downgraded to 10.6 and the admin account is missing.

The main session password is also in an older state, and we cannot connect anymore. We have tried to suppress the /var/db/.AppleSetupDone and go through the account creation process but without success.

Does anyone have any way to retrieve an admin account?

klanomath
  • 66,391
  • 9
  • 130
  • 201
  • 2
    Are you saying that before the power-cut it was running El Capitan & afterwards it was mysteriously running Snow Leopard, with no human intervention?? – Tetsujin Jun 20 '16 at 07:16
  • The proper method to initiate a new OS X setup is to delete/rename /var/db/.AppleSetupDone! Does the Mac boot to a netboot/netinstall image? Please add the Mac model and your system/network environment! With the given details it's almost impossible to reproduce the incident or present a solution. – klanomath Jun 20 '16 at 07:32
  • @Tetsujin Yes, as crazy as it sounds... Actually the first boot after the powershortage took many hours, so someone hard rebooted the computer. At the next start it was on 10.6. –  Jun 20 '16 at 07:47
  • @klanomath I am not near the machine right now, I will do so when possible, sorry. Also we already did the delete /var/db/.applesetupdone –  Jun 20 '16 at 07:48
  • Please check if the Mac booted from another partition or external drive (with 10.6 installed). It sounds more likely to me that a macOS downgrading itself. Also, i don't understand what you mean by "main session password is also in an older state". Can you explain further on that? – J.C. Jun 20 '16 at 08:03
  • The session password dont work anymore. I know most of the problems looks like nonsense, and there must be other causes, but i cant find them. Also there is no HDD or partition –  Jun 20 '16 at 08:34

1 Answers1

-1

Try restarting and then press Command+S. This will boot the computer in single user mode. After everything loaded, type in ( /sbin/ mount -uw /)first, then (rm /var/db/ .applesetupdone), and finally (shutdown -h now )or (reboot). This erases the previous setup and makes the mac think its brand new. All you would need is to create a new admin account.

I hack macs
  • 7
  • The user already stated they've tried this method, otherwise this question would be a duplicate of http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/164331/i-dont-have-administrator-account-on-my-mac. – grg Nov 01 '16 at 19:32