Lost access to files after renaming administrator account

[KatMacTX]

Let me start by saying I know nothing about Macs. I'm just beginning to learn how to use one. I was given a laptop at work that used to belong to someone else. After poking around the system, I found where the prior owner's name and password were set as the Administrator on the laptop. I changed the information to be my name, then was prompted to restart. After the restart I can no longer find any of the files that were stored on the laptop. I found a folder with the other person's name, but if I try to open it, I recieve the message "Access is denied".

Can anyone tell me how to get to these files?

 

[Marky_Mark]

Can anyone tell me how to get to these files?

I don't know whether I will work, but you could try seeing if your 'renamed' account still has 'admin' priviledges - perhaps they default to 'user' if the account is changed so fundamentally. If you can, change them back to Admin level and see if that allows you to open the files. Other than that, I'm not much help, sorry!

 

[groovebuster]

You can actually change a User name in Mac OS X? Always thought you can't... But I am eager to learn about it... How is it done?

groovebuster

 

[groovebuster]

After the restart I can no longer find any of the files that were stored on the laptop. I found a folder with the other person's name, but if I try to open it, I recieve the message "Access is denied".

Can anyone tell me how to get to these files?

The folder with the other users name is the area where all the files of that user are stored. All the files in that folder belong to that user and can't be accessed by somebody else just like that.

One way to get the files would be to connect an external drive with System installed to the PB and to start the machine from there... The original HD would be the secondary drive then and you should be able to access any folder on it then...

Any other ideas?

groovebuster