troubleshooting common issues

Mac Password Reset

Power on or reboot the computer while holding down the [option] key to access the Recovery partition — or [command]+[R]. Once the recovery partition environment has loaded, select Utilities | Terminal from the menu to load the Terminal app. Type “resetpassword” (no quotes) from the terminal screen, and press the [enter] key to load the Reset Password utility. From there, the volume that the user account resides on should be selected first, followed by selecting the name from the drop-down menu of the user account you wish to reset. Once this has been done, enter the new password in both fields to reconfirm the password, and click the Save button to commit the changes. To test the changes, restart the Mac and enter the new credentials for the modified account at the login screen.

Mac Disk Permissions

To repair disk permissions, simply perform the following:

  1. Open Disk Utility (located in Applications > Utilities or Spotlight “Disk Utility”)

  2. Select your startup disk (if in doubt, it’s usually the first one in the list)

  3. Click Repair Permissions

NVRAM Reset

Power off your Mac. Power it back on again while holding the key combination Command+Option+P+R.

Your Mac will sound like it’s booting (with the chime) and then your screen may flicker. Your Mac then reboots and chimes a second time. On the second chime, let go of the keys.