08-19-2004, 05:37 AM

Well, I got my mac off ebay around a month ago. Things have been wonderful. Nothing but good experiences.

Earlier tonight I was trying to change the short name of my account, since the brilliant mind I bought it from named it 'macmac' and that wasn't quite... me. Of course I probably should have left it as it was, but being the fickle person that I am, I attempted to change it.

I downloaded the program called "ChangeShortName" after reading the programmer hype it about being super easy and such.

So I ran the program, and apparently the shell program finished. I then logged out and back in as my new short name, "khan". Well apparently the program didn't work completely, because I didn't have any admin privliges and there was still a folder for macmac in the User folder, but I didn't have an option for logging in as macmac at the OSX Login screen, so I decided to read the instructions that came with the program and attempt to restore the backup to the way it was before I got this horrible idea of trying to change it in the first place...

So I rebooted to single-user mode as the documentation told me to. I mounted the drive by doing /sbin/mount -uw / <return> and things seemed to be going smoothly. I then did the rest of the commands as stated.

cd /var/db/netinfo <return>
mv local.nidb local.nidb.bad <return>
nicl -raw local.nidb -create <return>
niload -d -r / -t localhost/local < local-ChangeShortNameBackup-Aug192004.nidump <return>

When I do that last command it says "cannot connect to server localhost/local: communication failure" so I tried rebooting the computer. When the password screen comes up, I can only attempt to log in as "Other" but none of the username/passwords I had work.

So then I rebooted and attempted to rename the local.nidb.bad back to local.nidb, but I still only get the "Other" user option.

Anyone have any ideas? This will teach me never to mess with things of this nature ever again

-Kevin

08-19-2004, 07:27 AM

I fixed the problem. Just deleted the .AppleSetupDone file and resetup an account with the original shortname. Everything is fine now, thanks for the help.

08-19-2004, 07:43 AM

Good for you...
You should just simply have created a new user with your name, and deleted the "macmac" user...without messing around with the user shortname...
That would have been the easy way

08-19-2004, 11:01 AM

Hmm.. When you brought the system why didn't you do a fresh installation? I assume they sent you the manual and the original media pack right? So you have all the instruction there, in hard copy.

08-20-2004, 03:47 AM

Nope, no manual or osx cd. So I was screwed