Lost root and don't know user password Suse 8.2

[dprichard]

Okay, been fighting this one for 2 days so i figured I would go to the experts. I have a Suse 8.2 machine that we were using for a listserver for a few years now. We need to pull some data off of the machine, but no one knows the root password and we don't know any user passwords either.

I have tried going in and editing the shadow and passwd file, but it is almost like the revert back when I reboot. I have also tried rescue mode as root and then doing passwd root. It acts like it is letting me change the password, but when I try to use the one I set it doesn't work.

Any help on this one would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you thank you thank you!!

[Lazydog]

Boot into single user mode. There you should be able to do everything you need to do.

[dprichard]

How do I do that? I have tried typing in linux single or linux 1 at the line, but it doesn't do anything.

[dprichard]

Okay, I just tried it with linux -s and it goes to rulevel s but it says

"Give root password to login:"

[oz]

Here's a HowTo for resetting root and/or user passwords:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...-password.html