Password help

[deb481]

I had Ubuntu installed on a new computer. I forgot the username/password combination. After visiting this forum yesterday, I found the solution to go into the grub menu, then to the root shell prompt, and be able to enter commands to retrieve the user name and change the password. I did this, and was able to change my password, but could not retrieve the username. I restarted my computer and went to try again to get the username. When I went into recovery mode, it asked me for a password to continue. I entered the new password and was able to gain access to the root shell prompt. I still had no luck retrieving the username. I found some new instructions and went to try again, however now in recovery mode, my password will not work. Please help.

[bigtomrodney]

Try going into the root shell again and run the following command. This will give a list of all users along with system groups (a lot you won't recognise!). See if you can spot your username here

awk -F: '{ print $1 }' /etc/passwd

That may look like a crazy command but it's designed to filter down to just usernames from the /etc/passwd file. There is actually a lot more data in there that you don't need to worry about in this instance.

[deb481]

Thank you!! When I try to go in the root shell now, it tells me to enter a password to continue....the passwd I had changed does not work so I cannot get into the root shell.

[Ziplock]

Did you change the password for root, or the other user you are trying to find? Try the old root password.