Unable to access recovery mode with external screen

Hi there,

on my old Macbook Pro (Mid 2007, A1226) with a broken videocard/internal display I’m unable to access the recovery mode (Command + r) with an external screen, but resetting the PRAM or entering the boot menue with alt is possible. If I keep pressing Command + r to access the recovery mode I’m just thrown to the login screen.

Why I want to enter the recovery mode? I just have found an old Mac OS HDD (which is accessible on Linux, but not the private folders) and I just forgotten my login credentials.

Is there any hope for me?

Thank you, Carlos

[solved]

After a few back and forth I was able to solve the problem:

I’ve tried to remove/reset the admin account in the single user mode - with another, even older macbook it fully worked.

I’ve done the following:

Command + s (to enter single user mode)

mount -uw /

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

reboot

After the reboot I have to follow the steps like after the end of the installation of MacOS, enter a name, a username and a password. After that I was able to login with the new admin account and reset the other accounts password.

But with mine Macbook Pro I wasnt even able to access the single user mode, because:

rEFIt is installed….

(Apparently this is why the recovery mode didnt work….)

Some how I was able to enter the rEFIt boot menue and in this menue I had to hit F2 on the Apple Logo to access multiple boot options for MacOS, like the single user mode. Then I was able to enter the commands as above and it fully worked out for me.

Maybe this could help anyone else in the world :-)

Thank you for your great platform!