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I am helping a friend with a problem on his iMac Power PC G4 700mhz 384 ram running Jaguar OS10.2.8.

His keychain is not allowing him to send emails - it repeatedly requests his password. Funny thing is that it accepts the password when receiving mail. He can't delete the keychain as it is locked and says his password is not valid.

He bought the machine second-hand five years ago and either didn't get the installation CD or has lost it. His son thinks that the system was already set up when they got it.

So.... Is there any way I can reset his password without using an install disc?

Also, he would like to upgrade to Tiger but would it install on a non-intel machine?
If he buys the Tiger DVD I could install using my MacBook Pro as a target, yes?

Any other advice?? I should also mention that his son has his own user account.

Cheers
Teresa

Leopard installs on non-intel machines...so Tiger does too

Their machine is too old for Leopard though.

Phil

If your friend does't mind losing all saved passwords, it is possible to create a new keychain and make that the default one. This would be the easiest solution. It would require re-entering any passwords for mail accounts, web sites, etc. that are saved in the keychain.

Do they know the login password for the account on the computer, or are they having to rely on it automatically logging in?

You can have the login and keychain passwords set the same or different. If they are the same, then the keychain is automatically unlocked when you log in. If they are different, you have to enter the keychain password to unlock it.

The previous owner might have also enabled features such as automatically locking the keychain after 5 minutes, in which case you might find it is unlocked shortly after you start the computer but not if you check a while later.

If the passwords are different then resetting the password from the system CD won't help - it can only reset the login password, not the keychain one. (If the passwords are the same it will reset both of them.)

Re upgrading: a 700 MHz iMac G4 only has a CD-ROM drive so it will be somewhat difficult to install Tiger (10.4) on it, as Tiger is supplied on a DVD. Apple used to offer a service where you could send back your DVD and get a replacement set of CDs, but I doubt this will be available any more now that Leopard is available.

If you put your MacBook Pro in Target mode, you can probably borrow its DVD drive to install Tiger, using a standard retail version of Tiger. (The MacBook Pro's copy of Tiger is specific to that model and will definitely not work on an iMac G4.)

There are several issues to consider:

1. Upgrading to Tiger won't help with the password problem, but might let you reset it (depending on which combination of login and keychain password are present, as described above).

2. The iMac only has 384 MB RAM. While this meets the minimum requirements for Tiger, it won't be comfortable. I'd recommend upgrading the RAM if you were going to run Tiger on that computer.

3. Continuing to run the system after having installed from a DVD using another computer to assist will mean that you need the other computer to assist again should there be any need to boot from the system DVD to do something like repair the boot disk. I would not be comfortable with leaving anyone in this situation.

If you can find a CD set of Tiger (e.g. on TradeMe) then problem 3 disappears.

It might be worth considering Panther (10.3) as an alternative. It is supplied on CD and has lower memory requirements. You will have to buy it second hand, and be careful to buy the right version (a retail 10.3, not a machine-specific one) and make sure you get a complete set of CDs (three for the OS, plus one for the developer tools). Panther is also likely to be cheaper than Tiger.

Thanks for the info.

I'll create a new keychain and see how that goes. I'm still a relative newbie so I wasn't aware of how simple this keychain fix could be.

His login password works ok so I'm assuming it must be different from his keychain one.

Thanks heaps for the advice re Tiger installation and the ram needed. I'll also pass on the info re Panther.

For such a lowly spec'd machine as his I'm amazed at how well it performs ... wouldn't find that with a Windoze pc.

Once again, dempson, thanks heaps for the detailed help.

In case you haven't found the details: creating a new keychain is done with Keychain Access (in /Applications/Utilities).

You can't change the name of a keychain after you create it, and the original keychain is called "login". It might be useful to keep the same name for the replacement.

If so, you might want to proceed as follows:

1. In Finder, go into the user's home folder, then Library, then Keychains. You should see a file there called "login.keychain". Click on it to select it, then copy it, then paste it on the desktop. This ensures you have a backup copy of the old keychain (not that it is much use as you can't unlock it).

2. In Keychain access, delete the "login" keychain. It will ask if you want to delete references only, or references and files. Choose to delete "references and files".

3. Create a new keychain and call it "login". Enter the same password as the one for logging in to that account on the computer. This will allow the keychain to unlock automatically at login.

4. Make sure the new login keychain is the default one. There is a "Make Keychain "login" default" item under the File menu.

5. Start using other applications which need passwords (e.g. Mail) and re-enter them as required.

(I'm working with 10.5 for my examples, but these aspects are pretty similar in 10.2.)