OSX 10.9 Mavericks: admin password lost - recovery mode doesn't work

Question

On my Mac (10.9 Mavericks) I have a normal user account (rxt) and an admin account with administrator privileges. Last week I changed this admin password, and forgot it. Stupid that I didn't store in it a password manager, but that's looking back.

Searching for a solution I found out about the recovery mode. I restarted the mac with CMD-R. There I fired up the terminal, and started resetpassword. Then the Reset Password tool appears, where I have to select the volume that contains the user account. There is no volume to select. All buttons are greyed out.

There are two volumes, one for data, one for the osx system. The osx drive is encrypted with Filevault2.

What can I do to reset the admin account? The good thing is that I still can use the computer with my normal account, but I need the admin account as well. If necessary I will reinstall the system (which is a good idea anyway for performance issues), but for the moment I would prefer to reset the password.

Solution

Restart in Recovery mode again, but this time run Disk Utility, select the system volume in its sidebar, and you should get an "Unlock" option it the toolbar. You can unlock it using yourr regular account password. Then, quit Disk Utility, run Terminal and resetpassword, and you should be able to reset the admin account's password.

Comments

[tylerlindell]

This is closer than I have been. After I clicked unlock, it asks for a password. Looks like it is asking for the admin password. Anything you can offer to help get me further?

[Gordon Davisson]

@tlindell: you should be able to use your normal (non-admin) account password at that point. Actually, either one should work.