Lost my Admin password Help!

**dave52355** · 10-30-2003, 01:44 AM

Help

I installed a new vid card and drive in my computer. I had Knoppix 9/5/03 but it would not boot to the new vid card (GForce 4) So I installed Knoppix 9/22/03 to the new hd and left the old Knoppix alone hoping to be able to transfer docs and files. All is well except I aparently mistyped my Administrators password! Now I can't do anything except user priv.

Is it possible to copy the old password file from the old install onto the new install to correct this? Or am I looking at a reinstall?

Please help

Thanks

**rickenbacherus** · 10-30-2003, 03:10 AM

Bummer- I guess you better reinstall......er wait- no that's wondoze. Sorry for the scare.

Hold the TAB key before lilo comes up, it will give you a prompt. Enter this:

linux single

It will boot to run level 1. You will be root. Enter this:

passwd

Reboot

*However.......this may not work. In that case...

Boot Knoppix cd.
Mount your /root partition:

sudo mount /dev/hdx? /mnt/hdx?
sudo chroot /mnt/hdx?
passwd

Exit chroot:
CTRL+D

Enjoy

**dave52355** · 10-30-2003, 03:43 AM

The strange part is I do not get the log on screen now. I installed with "Like CD" option. Is there a way to reactivate that log in?

Thanks

Oh and Thank you for your help!

**aay** · 10-30-2003, 04:53 AM

Originally Posted by dave52355

The strange part is I do not get the log on screen now. I installed with "Like CD" option. Is there a way to reactivate that log in?

Thanks

Oh and Thank you for your help!

If you installed it Knoppix style or as the cd, then all you have to do is this:

Code:

sudo su

Then you will be root and you can do "passwd"

This is kind of scary isn't it. I don't think it's a good idea for an install to be setup like this, but I think it's inevitalbe on the Knoppix style install. You can probably change this if you loot at /etc/profile and do a little editing.

**dave52355** · 10-30-2003, 05:05 AM

Well its not Windows, but I opted for the reinstall. KDM was not loading and when I changed inittab from id:5 to id:4 only one user could log in from text mode. Than startx would bring up a really ugly gui in German. It was time to pull the plug!

This time I'm going with the Debian style install.

Now once it is up, I need to figure out the Nvidia driver thing for my Gforce4 MMX card.

Thanks