How to back up a locked drive and start over with my iMac?
I have posted before asking how to get past this infernal problem:
- I have entered a recovery key that I have forgotten.
- I have forgotten or possibly overwritten my user (admin) password with a different one.
The best solution would be to (from recovery mode, which I can access by selecting "lost all passwords" - I do have access to my Apple ID account, though I don't think anything is saved there) change the password for my user from the terminal, or bypass the recovery key entirely. This seems to be a more difficult solution.
In order to preserve the data for hopeful future unlock-ment, I would like to back up the entire hard drive on my iMac - I do have an external drive - and start over completely. In the processes of trying to fix this from the keyboard, I accidentally disconnected my iMac from iCloud and cannot return it to iCloud from the keyboard. So it sits, isolated from iCloud. It didn't want to let me back up anyway without unlocking the drive first.
So... how might I use my MacBook as a physical connection between my iMac and my backup drive to back up my iMac hard drive in full and start again with a fresh install of the operating system?
Thank you for your solutions if you have them.
