I have a Macbook OS 10.5. Today the battery ran out. I plugged it in and let it charge for a while. When I turned it back on it took longer than usual to give me the password box. When it finally did I logged in. I got on the internet but it was beach balling a lot so I force crashed it and restarted it. It gave me the log in box but now it won’t accept my password. I’m sure I’m typing it in correctly and the cap lock is not on. I’ve called Apple support but it’s $49 a call. I’m currently in financial straits so that’s not an option. I’ve been to Apple support web site but couldn’t find the answer I need (this is probably because i’m technologically challenged).
Could someone please explain how to fix this problem (in small words) or point me to an online article that explains it. I’ve tried to start it from the disc but can’t figure out how to do that.
This sounds very much like a hard drive crash.
You can boot from your install disc and run disc first aid, and then reset your password if necessary, but if your drive is trashed, you are going to need a new one installed. You have good backups, right?
If you need more help, get in touch with your local user’s group: User Groups - Apple
Another simple potential problem is a stuck key. When you’re typing your password, hit each key fairly hard and deliberately; maybe one of them is sticky. Usually it’s the caps lock thing, though.
I think you can also click the little Assistive Input thing at the bottom right and use the onscreen keyboard to enter your password; this will also show you if the keyboard has gotten changed to outer Mongolian or somesuch, as well.
Easiest way to remember: Hold down the Option key while restarting (with the disk in the drive). This should bring up a menu that lets you select which startup disk to use (use the mouse to select).
It’s possible to reset your user password if it’s truly screwed up by booting to single-user mode and actually typing in commands. I’d wait and see what you can actually do before resorting to that.
Obviously, if you have a backup, you should just restore to that once you can boot. Easier than trying to figure out what exactly is messed up.
Thanks to all who offered help. I tried everything I could at home and finally dragged it off to the Apple store. The tech confirmed it was a failing HD so after a LOT of hassle I’m now back in business.
After trying several online tutorials I called the Mac help line again. They directed me to the closest Apple store with a ‘Genius Bar’ as per your suggestion. I made a reservation and went in. The Genius ran a diagnostic and reset the password. That didn’t work so he reconfigured it to require no password. It still wouldn’t let him in. That and the continuing beach-balling lead him to conclude it was a failing HD. All of this help was free.
So I drove to the nearest Fryes and got a new internal HD and an external HD. Headed back to Apple store, made another appointment then an hour later got the Apple tech to back-up my HD. Again this was free but installing the new internal HD was going to cost a couple hundred dollars so I opted to do it myself. The instructions on the Apple website looked straight forward so I dove in. I was already frustrated by the time and $ inconvenience so this nearly pushed me over the edge.
First you need a quarter to take out the battery - so far, so good. The next step (removing the bar) required a jewelers phillips head. Grrr, but fortunately a neighbor had one. THEN I needed a #9 star driver to get the chassis of of the HD. WTF!? Every standard set has down to a #10. Why the hell do they need to use so many different screw head types? Another combing of my tool savvy neighbors proved fruitless so back in the car to OSH to buy a fucking tool I’ll probably never use again.
The Genius offered to re-install the OS (free) if I put in the HD but I was too tired and pissed to drive back over the hill so I did it myself. Everything seems to be working fine again.
FTR, the peeps at Apple’s Genius Bar were polite and attentive and seemed to know their stuff.
Yes, the dying hard drive is a pain. I’ve been there myself!
Since you have OS 10.5, I cannot recommend highly enough the method of buying a spare external hard drive that is bigger than your laptop’s internal hard drive (let’s say twice as big), and running Time Machine on the laptop. It is truly the most painless backup system that I have ever seen for home computers.
Not that you will likely ever need to do this again, but ifixit is a great resource for do-it-yourself computer repair. (They recently expanded to include user contributed guides, but all their Apple guides are generally quite good, and if you read the comments before jumping in you can deal with any other issues).
I just wanted to commend you on your can-do attitude. I’ve (tried) to help so many people who just give up after Step 2 and basically say “Oh… … … maybe I’ll just buy a new computer.” But you actually navigated the whole tech support maze, listened to their suggestions, bought yourself a new HD AND reinstalled the OS on your own. Bravo! You must be tech support’s dream customer.