Big trouble in a Big mac called power G4

I currently offered to fix my uncle's power G4 mac.I didn't know anything about mac and thought it would a fun challenge .So I install mac os 10 to 10.3.Everything became black and white .except for a couple icons.I can't upgrade individual updates such as 10.3.1. It ask for a admin password and he doesn't know his own password. ugghh is there anything I can do ?

Reinstall the Mac OS to change the Admin password.

Two suggestions:

- write the password down this time!
- don't even enter a password (you don't have to)...especially if your uncle is the only one using this computer.

HTH,

- Nick

this is the second time I reinstalled the mac 10.3 .I think the user setting from mac 10 is ingrained and I don't know where his mac 10 disc,just mac 10.3. Is there a way erase a mac powermac g4 hardrive .

I wonder if this is an old Power Mac G4 Yikes with that old ATI Capture card that came with some educational models? Does the video card have a VGA Port and two round jacks on the back where you plug in the monitor? I know for sure there were issues with that card and 10.3 and it was all black and white till I updated to a later version of 10.3. Think it was fixed by 10.3.2.

Boot with the OSX CD. Don't install but look up top for the drop down menus. Find Reset Password and change it to something you will both remember. Then reboot OSX and update 10.3 Via Software Update from the Apple Menu.

Having just been thru this might help if you download and install this then run software update - i think there were about 14 to include. You should run it more than once incase there are sequential updates once you are on 10.3.9

devotednow said:

this is the second time I reinstalled the mac 10.3 .I think the user setting from mac 10 is ingrained and I don't know where his mac 10 disc,just mac 10.3. Is there a way erase a mac powermac g4 hardrive .

Click to expand...

Normally when you do a fresh install of the Mac OS...it asks you to setup a new "admin" user ID & password. The password is actually optional.

So this is the first approach to login password problems.

It is possible to setup a "firmware" password...and I hope this computer does not have one.

Setting up firmware password protection in Mac OS X

A firmware password adds extra security...but is also more difficult to reset. I have not reset a firmware password before...but here's a procedure that claims to work:

OS X: Open Firmware Password

I hope this helps,

- Nick