Lost Root Password

[AlexK]

It will be a good idea to backup important docs and relevant rpms of programs/drivers you need. I haven't done a repair install, but if it decides to format (which I highly doubt), you will lose your data, so just to be safe, backup whatever is important to you.

[rogemax]

Hi together, struggling with the same issue - however, repair install doesnt really work, unfortunately. looks like the mounted drive doesnt recognize the passwd command. Any further ints on that? Appreciate your help

[AlexK]

what do you mean repair install didn't really work? The mounted drive won't recognize the passwd command unless you chroot into it.

If all else fails, just do a clean install.

[rj586b]

I will be attempting a repair install tomorrow and will let you know how it goes.

Hopefully this fixes the corruption in my password changing utility.

[charlemax]

Maybe this won't work in Suse, but have you tried using a live cd to access
/etc/shadow? You edit the file, deleting the hash number for the administra-
tor password. It's a number between the first two colons in the administra-
tor entry, which you find by scrolling down the page. Copy it and then delete the number, but not the colons, and then save the file.
when you reboot, you should be able to get in as administrator without a
password --- it will still ask you for one, but just push Enter and in you go.

[AlexK]

it will work, but the problem that the original poster faced was his password changing utility was corrupted. Hence, even if he changed the contents of shadow as you describe, it will leave his system without a root password.

[rj586b]

Sorry it took me so long to get back. I did try a Knoppix CD but I had the same problem. By the way, Knoppix is great! I thought it was pretty easy to save my important files + RPMs and do a fresh install. It was worth it to get my fix my root password problem.

Take Care

[Lono404]

I greatly appreciate all those who contributed to this thread. My first computer may have been a Commidore 64 but I am a power user not a geek. So when my installation of SuSE 10 Desktop proceeded to by-pass the part of setting up the first user, I was lost.

I followed each of these instructions and ended up using Knoppix with no success.

Following Occum's Razor I went back and re-downloaded the software. It turned out that two of the disks were corrupt. I Re-ran the install (by this time it must have been for the sixth time) and sucess!!!

So for you non-geeks, consider the possbility that the source disks are bad if your install ends with it asking for a username and password without having set them up.

I hope this helps.