MacBook reverts to Guest Login only

[Drew]

I have a MacBook circa 2008 running Lion unsure of the exact version.

When I turn on my MacBook it gives me the option to login under my account or a guest account. Once I click on my account and type in the password it takes about a minute and than reverts me to a screen that only has a Guest User option. I have never setup a Guest User password so I cant even login as a guest. On the bottom it has the option to Sleep, Restart, and Shut Down.

I have restarted and logged in many times under my account but it keep reverting to this Guest User. I have no idea what to do.

 

[honestone]

Wonder if this is a permissions issue? To repair permissions, you'll need to use Disk Utility.

Now, hopefully there is a Recovery HD partition (invisible) on your HD. This link tells you how to boot your Mac to that partition:

http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_boot_lion’s_recovery_mode

From there, you can use Disk Utility to Verify and Repair Permissions, and Verify and Repair your hard disk.

 

[Drew]

Unfortunately I do not have a "Recovery HD" just a "Macintosh HD", clicking on that just sends me back to square one.

 

[honestone]

From what I understand, that happens for some installations, and not just Lion. There are a couple of ways of creating one on your own, but right now you can't "get to your Mac".

It looks like your Macbook does not have a Firewire 800 port (if it did, you could boot it into Target Disk Mode). The only other possibility is if you have an external hard drive that has a bootable Mac partition on it (this is a great example of why I keep recommending making a bootable backup with SuperDuper!). If you did, you could connect it to your Mac via one of its' USB or Firewire 400 ports, boot up your Mac with again using the Option key, and then that bootable partition will appear. Selecting it allows you to boot from there, and (hopefully) that partition has some sort of Disk Maintenance/Repair program on it (good chance it could have Disk Utility, but something like Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro would be better).

I just thought of something else. Do you happen to have the original Lion DVD? Here is a link that shows you how to use different keyboard combinations to start up your Mac:

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255

If you have the Lion DVD, then you could try the first one on that list to "get to" that DVD, and re-start your Mac. On that DVD, Disk Utility would be there for you to use.