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My friend gave me his iBook G4.

I could not login because I did not know his password.

I have the 2 DVD Mac OS Install disks of the laptop.

After I installed these OS X Install discs, once again I was asked for the old user's password.

How do I do a complete wipe out and then reinstall the OS so I can become the new user?

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I think during the installation, there's a point where you have a menu available in which Disk Utility is accessible. You'd use that to delete the partition and recreate a new one. Alternatively, ask your friend for the password. – nix May 26 '11 at 18:11
I will try keeping an eye for that Disk Utility access. thanks! – indiehacker May 26 '11 at 18:31

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

Dont hit 'continue' after putting in the Install OS disk, instead go to top-left screen where there is a menu with an option to change login password.

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Since you answered your own question (with a correct answer) you should mark it as correct. – user6124 May 27 '11 at 14:07
up vote 1 down vote

If you don't happen to have an OS install disk lying around and don't know the other user's password, consider booting into single-user mode (hold down Command-S while booting (see this article)), running

mount -rw /
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
reboot

It will reboot and go through the setup again. After it finishes, you'll be at a fresh adminstrative user account, and you can just trash their home folder.

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up vote 0 down vote

When installing the operating system make sure you do an erase and install via the 'options' button during the install. Otherwise all the data will still be there.

As you have a G4 I can assume the install discs are either Tiger (10.4) or Leopard (10.5)

You can find the installation options here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1545

I think this is the cleanest way about completely resetting the machine.

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