mac behaving VERY badly...

Hi..I have had my first hair teraing out of my head experience with my mac. I have a quad core i5 imac (27 inch) and had to force a shutdown of my mac as it had crashed.

Before I rebooted, I removed all USB devices and cables except the power supply.

Now when it turns on, it goes to 'guest' account and I have NO WAY of going back to my previous account.

is there anyway I can get this computer to switch back on under my normal account?

I have TRIED EVERYTHING in the accounts setting in system preferences.

i did, however, have the good sense to make sure I have a time machine.


Is there anyone who could help me switch on my mac so it goes back to the way it should be..ie under my main account?

I will never ever ever ever have a guest account enabled on any of my computers again after this :-(


thanks in advance!

Click the Apple in the corner and select Log Out.

That will take you back to the log in screen.

Hi Bob..I tried that, it juts exits out of the guest log on and a new guest log on box appears.

System Preferences - Accounts - Login Options

Is your admin account still shown in the Accounts sidebar?

What do you currently have shown in Automatic login?

And

What do you currently have shown for Display Login window as:?

And

Can you make changes in the Guest account using your admin password?

Hi Bob, the side panel dosn't even list my admin account. I called apple and they told me to do a re-install and then re-instate my time machine back up

Have to agree with them - you somehow managed not just to create a guest account, but delete your account.

Hi Bob..I did a re-install and recovered my old account and everything is as it should be. Now..here's the kicker..

apparently there is a HUGE bug in Mac Osx 10 that causes Guest accounts to totally wipe out admin accounts. i did a google search on this and the apple rep also admitted that this does happen. he advised the only thing to do is to DELETE any guest accounts you may have. Now my only problem is getting itunes to recognise my ippone 4 is plugged in...grrrr!!

so for the benefit of others, if this ever happens, there is no known fix other than to re-install the operating system and DELETE the guest account/disable it immedeatly xx

That bug was fixed over a year ago. Have you not been updating your system?

chas_m said:

That bug was fixed over a year ago. Have you not been updating your system?

Click to expand...

my system is updated with every single update as soon as they happen and also my mac is 'cleaned' with 'cleanmymac' and onyx. by all accounts this bug isn't fixed, according to the apple guy.

he did say i was smart by investing in a time machine !

The "Apple guy" was wrong:

Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.6.2 - Guest Account Bug Fixed, Much More [Updated] | News | The Mac Observer

that looks like a fix to stop guest accounts deleting data. this was a guest account deleting an ADMIN ACCOUNT. when I did the non-destructive recovery, everything was as it should be. your weblink is saying there is a fix for guest accounts deleting DATA.It was also published in nov2009,long before I had a mac, so if my mac was up to date,then it shouldnt have happened.

Bluefox9er, that guest account bug deleted the data of the admin accounts, too. It doesn't happen very often, but can happen. My guess is that the i5 iMac is a Leopard machine? It deleted the home folder of the admin account, if I recall from August-ish of last year.