Imac has locked me out

[Laura Farrow]

I have a fairly new iMac (not my first one) and this is the first time one has locked on me. This happened after I left my computer on over night. When I went to use it, I required a password to get in.. Initially it took the password but then the mouse moved but nothing opened. It was totally unresponsive. I tried several things... opening safe mode but because it is password protected I can't get in to do anything. I tried to remove all startup items into the trash but would not respond and showed no items on startup. I tried rebooting with option command P R but again it let me in some of the time but opening any items was unresponsive. I am very concerned Could anyone help. I have never bought Apple Care because in almost 15 years of owning a Mac I have never had a problem... Any advice would be so appreciated.

 

[Kaveman]

fairly new iMac

how new, less than 12months it's still under AppleCare. If it over 3months AppleCare does not cover software. You may have to take it to an AppleCare Service Centre near you. You don't have to have AppleCare to take them there, they just charge you to fix it.

 

[Laura Farrow]

how new, less than 12months it's still under AppleCare. If it over 3months AppleCare does not cover software. You may have to take it to an AppleCare Service Centre near you. You don't have to have AppleCare to take them there, they just charge you to fix it.

I just purchased it in March so it should be under warranty...just wondered if there was a fix I could do or someone would know about...

 

[Morhass]

Something very unusual happening with your Mac, probably better to get help than to risk losing your data!

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

You could try this before you take it in.
If possible boot into Recovery by holding down the key command key+R at startup. Only release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial thing.

Now if the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar. And in Terminal window, type the following.
resetpassword
That's one word with no spaces. Then press return. A Reset Password window should open.

Now you should select your boot volume if it is not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Follow the prompts to reset the password. It's safest to choose a password that includes only the characters a-z, A-Z, and 0-9.
Now select restart by clicking the Apple on the menu bar.

You should now be able to log in with the new password.

But and this is a big but your Keychain will be reset IE empty so If you have forgotten the Keychain password (which is ordinarily the same as your login password), there's no way to recover it.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Are there any other accounts on your Mac that you could log into?

...but opening any items was unresponsive

From what I gather, you are able to log into your account but Finder is unresponsive … is this correct?

opening safe mode but because it is password protected I can't get in to do anything.

Do you have FileVault activated?