How do you delete a Deleted User?

[Kryten]

In /users/.... I have a folder called Deleted Users containing a deleted user and when I do a Smart backup to an external Firewire drive using SuperDuper, [Smart backup only backs up changed data], it always fails because of this deleted user that cannot be deleted.

I am the Administrator, but the Mac says I do not have the required privileges. I was advised there may be a Terminal solution? I have tried the Target Drive approach too. Any suggestions please?

Thanks
Kryten

 

[Brown Study]

This may be true only in Tiger or maybe even recent updates of Tiger, but typing

deleted user

in Mac Help hauls up:

1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences and click Accounts.
2. If some settings are dimmed, click the lock icon and type an administrator name and password.
3. Select the user account you want to delete, then click Delete (-).
4. Click OK to save the user's files on the computer, or click Delete Immediately to remove the user account and all the user's files.

Did that bounce you out, too?

 

[novicew]

There is a slight difference between a user who has admin rights and the Root user. The root user is normally the first user you create during installation. If you login as a root user, there shouldn't be a problem deleting another user. However if you have user who has admin. privileges it may not enough to delete a user.

 

[Kryten]

Thanks gents.

You are right, the Short Name in Accounts is greyed out and is the offending user (me) I want to delete. It is as you suggest the name I used to install OSX Tiger. Since I can't remember that particular password I guess I'm scr*w*d.

Thanks for your help though.

Cheers!

K.

 

[novicew]

If you can't remember the PW you can reset it by booting from the installation DVD.

 

[Kryten]

Thanks for that......fingers crossed.

K