Mac OS X Tiger - problems with initial setup

[marcelwojdylo]

Hi there, MacRumors!

My mum bought a MacBook two or three years ago, but after a while it became unbearably slow. She stopped using it. I recently dug it up to try to do something about it, needed her password for reinstalling the OS, which she of course forgot (the password, not the OS).

Anyway, I messed around in Single User Mode and accidentally effed something up - the "Couldn't find root user. Sleeping and trying again." message started flooding the screen. I read somewhere that I should delete a file that would make the MacBook show me the initial setup screen upon startup, so I did - all was well until I got to the end of registration.

When I click 'Continue' it should take me to the screen responsible for creating a new login account - instead there is a grey 1px line in the middle of the light-grey box. I can still click 'Go Back', but that obviously takes me no-where.

What can I do?

Sincerely,
Marcel

 

[r0k]

Can you start from scratch, booting from the DVD? Are you trying to recover data or do you want to belt-sand the machine? If you don't mind belt sanding the machine, (at least on Leopard and probably on Tiger) you can start disk utility after booting from the DVD and format macintosh hd before you install. Thus you get a clean install and any mistakes you might have made in previous install attempts are irrelevant. If, however you want to recover files on your machine, you can try an archive and install once again booting from the DVD.

You really shouldn't be running around in single user mode deleting files unless you know exactly what you are doing or you don't care about the data on your machine. In single user mode, all "safety measures" are off. No file permissions. No user accounts. You are root # all the time. This is an awesome responsibility because there is no safety net if you do something stupid like changing to / and typing \rm -rf *. Your stuff is simply gone. Is there an Apple store around? If your AppleCare is expired, you will have to spend money but having Apple put things right will wind up saving you a lot of time versus poking around in single user mode, relying on the support of anonymous "experts" in forums, while trying to avoid bricking your system.

 

[marcelwojdylo]

Thanks a bunch!

I don't care about the data at all, in fact, erasing the whole volume was what I set off to do in the first place, but Disk Utility wouldn't let me for some reason. Never mind that now, OS X is at this very moment installing itself onto my MacBook, let's hope all goes well.

And again, thanks. If this were an RPG game, I'd give you some credits or gold coins.

Regards,
Marcel