[macvoiceover] Re: Password help!

  • From: Singing Sparrow <sunshine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2015 12:00:32 -0500

why notgive me the instructions and let me try it. is there a way i could use the snow leppard dvd to totally erase the drive and then reinstall snow leppard and then theupdate to snow leppard and then do the install of yosemity?

On 9/3/2015 11:53 AM, Ignasi Cambra wrote:

Running Yosemite with only 2 GB of RAM is not ideal, but is still within apples minimum requirements. Voiceover really doesn't use much memory at all, so as long as you try not to run many applications at the same time your system should still run quite smoothly.
The thing is that your situation is actually quite tricky: From OS X 10.6.8 you should be able to download Yosemite from the Mac App Store, but you won’t be able to install it right away because it looks like your user account doesn’t have administrator privileges. Even to do a clean install you will need administrator privileges on that computer in oder to create a bootable drive that you can use to install Yosemite from, so there are two options that I can think of:
1. Find someone who knows how to create a bootable USB drive from the Yosemite installer and who can do it from a computer that’s not yours, then boot from that drive, erase your hard drive containing the Snow Leopard installation and install Yosemite.
2. You can always boot into your Mac in Safe Mode and modify the password for the administrator account on your computer, which is really quite simple if you are comfortable writing commands in a terminal window with no voice feedback. This should be possible if whoever gave you that computer hasn’t activated firmware password protection, which is very likely. If you manage to change the administrator password you will be able to install whatever you want and use the computer however you like. I could try to give you instructions on how to do that, but if you aren’t familiar with the Unix console environment maybe it’s not the best idea.
Hope this helps...

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 3, 2015, at 6:20 PM, Singing Sparrow <sunshine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:sunshine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

Ok, this is my current set up.
the macbook is a mid 2010 white polly carbon intel core 2 duo 2.4 ghz processor 2 gigs of ddr3 ram 250 gig hardrive current osx version is 10.6.8 this was updated from the osx version that was installed on the macbook which was 10.6.3 how could i do a clean install of yosemity when i would need to know what the user name and password would be to even do an install of yosemity? according to what i read on a few web sites about it?

On 9/3/2015 3:18 AM, Ignasi Cambra wrote:
Which version of Snow Leopard do you have installed? If you are on 10.6.8 you would be able to do a clean install of Yosemite if your computer is able to run it. In that case you would not need the snow leopard DVD. If you are on a version earlier than 10.6.8 then your best choice would be to just boot from the DVD, use disk utility to erase your drive, and follow the instructions to reinstall the system. That would allow you to set your own password, which would make it possible for you to update your computer to 10.6.8, and then upgrade to Yosemite.
Obviously before doing any of this you should copy any important information or files in that computer to an external drive. Otherwise you will just lose everything.

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 3, 2015, at 10:01 AM, Singing Sparrow <sunshine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:sunshine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

If i look and i have the dvd what would be the steps to cleanly do an install removing everything and making sure that nothing is left behind?

On 9/3/2015 2:50 AM, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
All the solutions I know of, given that you don't have the install cds or dvd that came with it, involve booting into safe mood, where you have to type several lines without any feedback as voiceover doesn't work. Even if you either erase the current users and reset it to run the setup assistant again, or just reset the password for a user, then you have to also fix or delete and restart building the keychain. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody unless he/she had excellent typing skills that don't need audible feedback and had experience with the Mac, especially using terminal. If I was right there to guide step-by-step or could do it myself, I might do this and actually have done it on a Mac on one occasion. But honestly, even if doing this works, you will not have securely erased this other person's information. What really needs to happen is for you to completely erase and reinstall your system. The only way I know of for you to do this would be to purchase the snow leopard dvd from the Apple Store (not available in the app store; you need to buy a physical product). You would bring up the dvd for install which can be explained in more detail once you are doing it but go into disk utility on the dvd and totally erase your drive first. Then you would do a clean install via the dvd and would set up your own user information. Long-term, I think this would be the best solution though I can understand that you would like a quick fix so you can go ahead and install Adobe flash player and get on with life, but I honestly think this approach would benefit you most in the long run.

As for installing Yosemite, first you would need to know if you meet all the requirements for running Yosemite and have enough memory to make it a positive experience; I would tend to recommend more memory than the minimum requirement especially with running voiceover. But again, trying to install it over your Snow Leopard install is going to require the password for the administrator. Starting over again from scratch may seem like a daunting undertaking, but I think that long-term it would prove to be a better choice than trying to deal with a system that was given to you with somebody else's information and setup already on it. Unfortunately, people who want to make money, or want to help other people, or both, do this way too often: hand on a computer without fully erasing and reinstalling a clean system and without even remembering and passing on passwords if for some reason it cannot be reinstalled by the giver/seller. It's often a very well-intentioned action, but it often makes things very difficult for a new user and may even end up discouraging that user from trying to use a Mac.


Did you post here what your Mac's model is, amount of memory, etc. It's very possible you could and should eventually install Yosemite but you would want to know that your system is compatible.

If you need help doing an install and don't already have somebody to help you, and live in the U.S. and could work over the phone, I would be glad to help you. You would be welcome to email me offlist and we could explore whether this would be doable. There are probably others on the list who would do the same and if you feel that your best course is to do this as independently as possible, I know that people on the list will be glad to continue assisting you via the list. I actually know nothing about your background and experience and don't at all intend to underestimate your knowledge and work in this area; i hope my offer does not sound like I am doing this.


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