Single User Admin on OS X Mountain Lion

It's easy to make a user an administrator on OS X using the GUI tools. But if you do not have access to an existing admin account, this is impossible. By booting into Single-User mode, you can make a non-Admin into an Admin using the command line.

Here is how to do it.

• Shut down the computer.
• Hold down Cmd-s and power on the computer to boot into single-user mode.
• Once the computer is done booting, you will be at a shell prompt, logged in as the root user. Run the following commands:

fsck -fy
mount -uw /
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist
sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a yourlogin -t user admin
sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a yourlogin -t user wheel
reboot

• The computer will now reboot back into the normal graphical mode.
• Log in, and see that you are now an Administrator!