Mid 2012 Macbook Pro Login Issue

Recently I was using my Macbook and was having some issues with a program that was running.  I had a lot of processes running(imovie, motion, gimp).  I saved and closed all the projects running and did a restart on the system.  Boot up looked normal.  Once i chose my user account and entered the password, everything still looked normal but the OS would not load.  The loading bar that normally takes a few seconds to a minute slowly loaded for about 30-40 minutes and then rebooted.  Every time I attempt to login with that user account(the admin and only user account on the macbook) the same thing happens.  I was able to boot in recovery mode and go to disk utility.  The HDD appears completely full.  I am unable to test it or unlock it.  An attempt to unlock the HDD to test it, responds the similar the login attempt, it takes forever and does not do anything.  I have removed the HDD and placed it in an external enclosure to verify it is operational and it test good but I am still unable to recover any info from the HDD.  I also tried using a firewire to firewire cable from my macbook to an imac to access the HDD as an external storage device booting the macbook into storage mode.  No luck their either.  I read a few post in the forum here and found a link detailing how to reset an admin password, one option detailing creating a new user account through Terminal then accessing the user accounts with that login and resetting the initial account.  Link attached below.  Would this be the next course of action?  Is there something I am overlooking?  Any suggestions of another plan of attack?  I unfortunately do not have a backup.  Once i can recover data or get back into the user account I can reinstall the OS through disk manager if needed but I an attempting to recover the data or preferably the user account.

 

Link http://osxdaily.com/2010/08/10/forgot-mac-password-how-to-reset-mac-password/

I have removed the HDD and placed it in an external enclosure to verify it is operational and it test good but I am still unable to recover any info from the HDD.  I also tried using a firewire to firewire cable from my macbook to an imac to access the HDD as an external storage device booting the macbook into storage mode.  No luck their either.

What specifically happens when you mount the drive as an external drive on the iMac either by use of an external enclosure or Target Disk mode? In other words, what road block do you encounter to being able to copy data off the drive using this method?

If the drive mounts, then this approach might still be a viable way. You seem to say that the drive tested as fine (if I am understanding you correctly), so not being able to read the data and copy it to another drive should be feasible in theory with this method. If something more severe is happening with the disk, then it is possible that a disk tool like Diskwarrior or TechTool Pro might be able repair the disk. Or maybe using a data recovery program such as DataRescue for Mac might work (DataRescue is no free, but they have a free mode that will check to see what files the programs believes it can recover...there are other similar programs, but DataRescue is the one that I am familiar with to at least some minor degree).
 

I read a few post in the forum here and found a link detailing how to reset an admin password, one option detailing creating a new user account through Terminal then accessing the user accounts with that login and resetting the initial account.  Link attached below.  Would this be the next course of action?  Is there something I am overlooking?  Any suggestions of another plan of attack?  I unfortunately do not have a backup.  Once i can recover data or get back into the user account I can reinstall the OS through disk manager if needed but I an attempting to recover the data or preferably the user account.
 
Link http://osxdaily.com/2010/08/10/forgot-mac-password-how-to-reset-mac-password/

The one thing to try is booting into Safe Mode (hold down Shift key while booting up). This can sometimes fix issues when the Mac OS will not complete boot up. It will verify the startup disk and try to repair any directory issues, but also will delete some caches. Sometimes this alone might fix some problems. If it will fully boot into Safe Mode, then it also might be possible to copy data off the drive to another drive. Here is a page that talks a little about Safe Mode:

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/07/29/how-to-boot-mac-safe-mode/

If Safe Mode does not help or allow you to copy off files, then it is possible that if the user account is just totally hosed that creating a new user account might help. So, the second approach in the link might do something. At a minimum, booting into Single User mode and using the "fsck" command listed in that option might repair some file system/disk issues, which might help.

If neither of these options work, then your only hope for you to deal with it yourself might be the above attaching the drive as an external drive and using either a drive repair program or try a data recovery program.

Barring all that, then the last resort might be a data recovery service such as DriveSavers. I will note that this is typically a rather expensive option (i.e. hundreds of dollars, if not potentially thousands), so it might not be worth it unless you really have critical data on the drive that you just have to have regardless of the price.

 

What specifically happens when you mount the drive as an external drive on the iMac either by use of an external enclosure or Target Disk mode? In other words, what road block do you encounter to being able to copy data off the drive using this method?

Plugging the external into a Mac does request the password to access and never unlocks.  Plugging into a windows machine just shows a little jumble but no actual data.  Looks like a few random lines of encryption but no files, folders, etc. 

What specifically happens when you mount the drive as an external drive on the iMac either by use of an external enclosure or Target Disk mode? In other words, what road block do you encounter to being able to copy data off the drive using this method?

Plugging the external into a Mac does request the password to access and never unlocks.  Plugging into a windows machine just shows a little jumble but no actual data.  Looks like a few random lines of encryption but no files, folders, etc.

The Mac startup drive will be formatted as HFS+, which Windows cannot read unless you have a utility such a MacDrive installed on the Windows machine.

When the drive is connected and mounted to the iMac (either way), try to "Get Info" (under File menu or Commmand-I). Does it ask for the password to do this? If not, then see if the "Ignore ownership of this drive" check box is selected under the Permissions section. If not, try checking it.

Otherwise, you are likely back to the disk tools, Safe Mode, and trying to create a new user account as addressed in previous post.