Lost my administrator on my 2009 iMac

[TimJohn]

I was cleaning up a 2009 iMac to give to a friend and added them as a user then I deleted myself. Their privileges were set as administrator but I had a spelling mistake in her name. So I tried to rename her acct and for some reason, she was then made a "standard user" along with a guest acct. However, there is no administrator on the iMac now. So that is rather limiting because she will not be able to download software or install anything without the administrator privileges.

How can I fix this?

 

[Apple_Robert]

I would do a clean install to set the correct admin account.

 

[TimJohn]

SImple question....I don't have any discs so how do I do a clean install?

 

[TimJohn]

OK I just read a document on how to do a clean install....you still need to have an administrator password which I don't have.

 

[TimJohn]

I have done a backup with an external hard drive that may have older backups on it. So maybe this is the solution.

 

[velocityg4]

Use Diskmaker X to create a bootable USB installer. Boot off that and wipe the HDD with Disk Utility. That'll clear out any old accounts. Linked is a list of Disk Maker X versions and OS X ISO downloads. Choose the appropriate versions of each.

Downloads

diskmakerx.com

If all you have is the M1 to make the ISO. You may have some difficulty. Although you might be able to use Terminal. You might be able to do this from the 2009. But I think that requires admin access.

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

You can use a USB flash drive or other secondary volume as a startup disk from which to install the Mac operating system. These steps are primarily for system administrators and other experienced users.

support.apple.com

You can also try booting into Single User Mode. Creating an admin account through the command prompts.

I don't have administrator account on my mac

On my mac I have 2 accounts and the both are normal account. So in this moment I don't have a Administrator account, only one that was in the past a administrator, but now is not. How I can have a...

apple.stackexchange.com

 

[TimJohn]

In the middle of restoring an older backup and hope it places me as the administrator again. Restoring should take 7 hrs.

 

[TimJohn]

It worked....did a restore from a year old backup. Now to prepare it with a new user and donate to a friend.