[SOLVED] hello, please help

[niaa]

Hello ,
First off id like to excuse myself for my horrible English as it isn’t my mother language.


We have an old laptop that has suse 8.0 installed. i forgot the login password and the root passwd. actually my son had installed this years back to play with Linux , we never used this computer for years but now i am trying to get old family pictures and i do need to get into the computer:O)
Here is my problem i do not know anything about computers.. Nothing nadda...
the boot thing ( i know sorry) is lilo and with the init=/BIN/BASH i made it to the passwd place . i entered a new passwd, pressed enter then it asked me to retyp the passwd... now comes the error. "Cannot lock password file already locked... i have no clue what to do now.. Maybe someone very kind could help me out in resetting the root password…. Please be very plain in your explanation excuse my english again and of course the fact that i do not even know how to "explain" my problem with the proper terminology

thank you in advance
niaa

[reed9]

You have a couple of options.

You can try the ideas here: Recover Root Password - openSUSE
I recommend trying single use mode first.

Or if you have a spare blank CD around, you can download pretty much any distro with a Live CD version, boot it up with that, and access the drive.

Here's a guide for burning a CD of Ubuntu.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

[sarlacii]

Hello niaa
reed9's suggestion of using a Live Distro is what I would suggest. There are many types: Ubuntu, Knoppix, Puppy, PCLOS etc.
You may find you have a friend (or work IT guy) who already has a Live Distro on a disk for you to borrow. This would save you having to download.
You then boot off the CD/DVD and then open up the PC's HDD from there. Copy your files to a USB drive, or over the network.
May the Force be with you.

[niaa]

i thank you very much for your help

i cant believe it, it worked...

thank you so very much

niaa