If You Can't Log In To OS X After Restoring From A Time Machine Backup...

Thursday, 13 October 2011

The explanation here works on OS X versions prior to Mountain Lion. If you have Mountain Lion reboot by holding cmd+r instead of cmd+s to go into Recovery Mode and change your password using the Graphical User Interface.

This has happened to me twice since I started taking Time Machine backups. Something went horribly wrong, you want to restore from a Time Machine backup and after all those hours of waiting for everything to be transferred over you're presented with the login screen...

But you can't log in. You type your password 3 times to make sure it's right but it doesn't let you log in. Here's how to fix it:

  1. Reboot the Mac and hold down cmd+s -- This will boot into single user mode. Black screen, white text.
  2. Mount the hard drive as explained at the prompt. -- Most likely: mount -uw /
  3. Type: passwd [your user name] -- For example: passwd jeroen (jeroen is my username on the machine). If you don't know your username, type: ls /Users
    This will list the usernames on your computer.
  4. Enter your password, and confirm it by entering it again. Notice you do not "see" what you type, this is normal.
  5. Type: exit

The machine will reboot and you'll be able to log in again. *phew*

Comments

John Dorlin (not verified)

Thu, 2011/11/10 - 09:42

Hello,
I had the same problem but this did not work for me at all. I still got the same issues as before and doesn't it have to be the command "passwd" instead of "password" ?

Jeroen

Sun, 2011/11/20 - 17:13

Hey John,

Thanks for the proofread, it is indeed passwd instead of password of course. I've changed it in the post. But you're telling me it didn't work? It should, really. I hope by now your problem has been fixed though.

DAC (not verified)

Fri, 2012/04/20 - 04:44

Hello,

I was so excited to have found this suggestion, but it didn't end working for me either. Is there any other trouble shooting things I may do?

My situation is that I had to replace my internal hard drive in my MacBook. So, I've got it replaced, got Snow Leapord reloaded, restored my profiles and things from my Time Capsule via Time Machine, and now it's not accepting my password.

It's really starting to frustrate me. I was expecting this to be such a smooth transition with the Time Machine restore and everything. Now it's just turning out to be a big hassle being so close to having my laptop functional again. Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

veriz (not verified)

Tue, 2012/04/17 - 09:09

How can I restore Mac OS X after installing Windows 7 without Boot Camp?

Sashmo (not verified)

Wed, 2012/08/01 - 16:19

Worked for me. you just need to remember what your user name was, not your real account name.

Pierre (not verified)

Thu, 2012/09/27 - 22:26

Hi,
Thanks a lot for your help.
I've tried your solution however I'm kinda stuck in the process: my keyboard is totally inactive (except Enter) when it comes to enter the password.
Any hint?
Thks a lot

Jeroen

Mon, 2012/11/05 - 10:42

This is normal when you're typing passwords on the "command line" like you are when booting in single user mode through cmd+s.

It's the equivalent of the ••••• characters in a Graphical User Interface.

Peter Lauge (not verified)

Thu, 2012/10/11 - 13:37

The solution did not work for me. I ended up with boot from the OS cd. And under utilities select: reset password

And the boot the machine.

The I had to enter the old password to get access to my old keychain.

It's like the old windows days :-)

Daxing (not verified)

Tue, 2012/10/16 - 21:13

I've just encountered the same issues and unfortunately the above steps didnt work for me; however, I did the following and it worked a charm:
- Booted off the CD (Press C during startup)
- At first prompt, select your Language
- on next prompt, you shold see top right, the UTILITIES menu. Select this and choose PASSWORD RESET
- You will then be prompted to select a drive. Select the the appropiate Drive and then use the drop down box to select the account you want to reset and type a nw password and select SAVE.
- Restart and all should be good.

Kind Regards

andy bunday (not verified)

Sat, 2013/01/05 - 05:49

I tried the fix you suggest by booting off the CD and restting the password from utilities.
The dialogue box told me that this wouldn't alter the login password unless I used Keychain Access to reset the password for the user's login.
But how do I get into Keychain Access?
Any help or advice gratefully received!
Andy

Brandon Maclean (not verified)

Wed, 2013/03/27 - 01:36

Worked great thanks.

Luca (not verified)

Tue, 2012/10/16 - 21:45

Same problem.
I'm using a new iMac. I don't have cd and i can't call support, i'm outside of my country.
After restore i can't log in. Any idea?
I can't reinstall original osx either, i have no connection here...

It's a mess.