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

published by Jeroen on Thu, 2011/10/13 - 16:47

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:

Reboot the Mac and hold down cmd+s -- This will boot into single user mode. Black screen, white text.
Mount the hard drive as explained at the prompt. -- Most likely: mount -uw /
Type: passwd [your user name] -- For example: passwd jeroen (jeroen is my username on the machine)
Enter your password, and confirm it by entering it again.
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.

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