After installing a new account on the internal harddisc after software problems, my MAC OS 10 went into lock. Not only the internal harddisc, but also my three external harddiscs. My MAc says I don't have the priviliges to unlock, which is not the case of course. If I go to 'info' I can unlock the lock icon on my user account, but from then on the MAC does not respond to any commands or changes I would like to make.
Can anybody help me?

Cheers, Helen

[Kraetos]

What do you mean when you say "installed a new account?" Did you reinstall Mac OS X with the discs that came with your Mac, or did you create a new user account in the Accounts pane in System Preferences?

Can you post a screenshot of these dialog boxes?

To post a screenshot, hit Shift-Cmd-4 at the same time, and your mouse will turn to a crosshair. Then hit the space bar, the crosshair will turn to a camera. Then click the camera on the dialog box you want to show us. There will be new .png files on your desktop named Picture 1, Picture 2, etc...

To put the pictures on the internet, go to http://www.imgur.com/, click "choose file" and navigate to the pictures. (They'll be on the desktop.) Then click continue, and your picture will upload to imgur. imgur will give you a link to your picture when it's done uploading, you can post that link here so we can see what's going on.

A picture of the "get info" window for your hard drive would also be helpful.

[torifile]

If you've just created a new account, you're going to run into trouble with accessing info in your old account easily. OS X is a true multi-user system, so there are specific user permissions in place on all files. You can get around those individually, but it's a real pain in the butt to do for all your files.

You're much better off trying to fix the problems you were having than creating a new account. Maybe we can help figure out the problems you were having?

[Partial]

Can't you boot with the -s option and login to root, or something to that effect?

[alcimedes]

Can you log into the old account?

Can you log in with an admin account?

If you change the permissions on the folder, are you clicking on the "Apply to enclosed items" option after changing the permissions?

Apple care took care of the problem. Had to unlock all the harddiscs via terminal, but thanks for your help anyway.