I recently got a free G3 Powerbook from a friend. He got it from another friend, and so on. The reason that he gave it to me is that there’s a password set on it when it starts up, and he doesn’t know it - never has. He gave it to me on the basis of “if you can get into it, you can keep it.”
Now, I figure that this must be possible, if not easy. There doesn’t seem to be any concrete information online about how to do this, and I’m hoping it’s not something that I need to take this somewhere and pay money to have done.
So what’s up? What can I do? Is there something I can do in the software, pulling up a hidden menu or something, or is it some sort of hardware thing (like a hidden jumper) that I need to trigger?
Assuming you are running OS-X and that it is the OS password to which you refer and not a BIOS-level password (or the Apple equivalent thereof), you can foolow instrunctions on this page. Scroll down about 1/3 the way down the page. You’ll need your OS-X CD, but you won’t need to do a reinstall.
I’ve never tried it on a laptop of any kind, but on normal motherboards there is generally a jumper that can be moved or pins that can be bridged in order to reset the Bios.
If it’s the open firmware password, change the RAM configuration and reboot. That should reset the open firmware password. Then just put the memory configuration back to normal. If you’ve only got one memory chip (err… SIMM or DIMM or whatever you call the damn modules these days) then I’ll leave you to the power of Google Groups to seek your answer.
Your machine should be able to run any Macintosh OS 8.x version (8.0 through 8.6). I’m sure you could find operating system disks through your local Apple User Group.
Ok, more info, since I’ve been able to screw around with it -
It’s running Mac OS 9.2, and it boots up fine - but then a screen pops up with the previous owner’s name and prompts for a password, which I have no way of knowing.
How can this password be disabled through the software? Is there a I can hold while booting up to defeat it, or get into some sort of BIOS menu where I can change it?
Apparently a Mac dealer can get around it, since several sites suggest taking your password-locked Mac to one in cases such as this–which means there must be a backdoor someplace–but there appears to be (justifiably) little information about it available.
Stupid question: Have you tried typing in “password” or “1234” or “mac”? When I bought mine, the password had been set by the previous owner to “password.”