How To: Recover A Lost Mac OS X Administrator Account Password (Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8)

Author: Chris Haralson
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13m 45s Lenght
531 Rating

In this tutorial, I am going to teach you how to gain access to a password-protected Mac running Mac OS X 10.7 or 10.8. This is particularly useful if you've lost your password and do not have the Mac OS X installation disc that came with your Mac. I'm going to show you two methods for recovering your password. First, I'm going to show you how to create a root account without being logged into an existing account. Then, I'm going to show you how to use the root account to crack the administrator's password. To crack the administrator's password, we're going to use a free password cracking utility called Dave Grohl (download link below). In addition, I will demonstrate an alternate method where we retrieve the administrator's password hash and decrypt it on a separate machine using a free password cracking utility called John the Ripper (download link below). If you have limited physical access to the administrator's system, this method will be most practical because, depending on the complexity of the administrator's password, the decryption process can be time consuming. Downloads: Dave Grohl (Mac OS X) http://www.davegrohl.org/downloads.html John the Ripper (Mac OS X) http://www.openwall.com/john/contrib/john-1.7.3.1-all-6-macosx-universal-1.zip John the Ripper (Windows) http://www.openwall.com/john/contrib/john-1.7.3.1-all-6-win32-1.zip Note: It is illegal to perform this attack on any system that you do not own. Accessing a system that you do not own is illegal. The information presented in this tutorial is for educational purposes only.

Comments

  1. Does El Capitan work?
  2. Hello am running mac OS X YOSEMITE 10.10.4 i forgot my Administrator password but i can login to single standard user please make a video on how to reset the password without cd I can even install any things on the macbook pro 2010 13inch please.
  3. hi...I try this method And apply the same steps: but when I write.that command in the terminal program it give me (( no such file or directory)) !! why it give me that ?? and whats problem?? please help me to restart my bass word to mac ..god pleas you
  4. i gotta keep typing in admin code to use cheat engine
  5. After command s is throwing this error type 0x20010008
  6. Hello!~ Thank you for your tutorial. I would like to ask if you could assist in the following: My admin login option is missing and the only thing that shows up when I turn on the Macbook pro is GUEST USER. I can't login to my admin because I can't locate it. Any tips you have would be great!
  7. please do this to mac os x 10.11
  8. Everytime I enter the sudo ./dave -u then my user name it keeps saying user not found. What should I do?
  9. I tried this on osx version 10.9.5. Once I got to the part where I typed in passwd. When I pressed enter I got this error segmentation fault 11. Anyone now how to get around that?
  10. Will it work for yosemite?
  11. Does this work for OS X 10.9.5. Also, does this change the admin password, and if so, is there any way to find the password without changing the admin- i.e if the password beforehand is 12345, you won't change it to 5678, but rather find it out unchanged. Many Thanks. Edit: Also this is being done on a 'mac mini'
  12. Is there anyway to hack the password? By not changing it but finding out what the password is..
  13. Do I have to make a root account?
  14. ok when I go to save the hash, my file format drop down menu does not have plain text so please help
  15. Hi Dear, I have not been able to log into my Macbook Pro. 13" after the initial screen, there is this second login screen without user account, just space to enter username another space for password, I have used my username and password in this second login screen, but it won't let me login, because the information is incorrect, this happened when I delected my user account, I turned off the computer and tried to turn it on again, I have not been able so far.
  16. up to how long can the process take
  17. umm i dont have the other option. what should i do?
  18. i have an error problem with my macbookair what can i do and i have no recovery mood also
  19. does this work on 10.10
  20. Very nicely done. I've never seen this process explained so clearly and concisely.
    Great job- you're a natural teacher.
    Thanks!