Help forgot root password

[scotthge]

Please, could someone give me some advise ? I put linux mint debian xfce on my brothers computer and we can not log in. He forgot the password and I can not remember what I used. I know that I can do a re-install but I rather not unless I absolutely have to. Is there a way of resetting the password ? I have tried using the terminal with the command " passwd " but it ask or the current password......... we don"t know the password so that doesn't work . I have googled the problem but can not find anything that will work. Everything that I find is for Ubuntu.

Any idea"s or instructions would be appreciated.

scotthge

[xenopeek]

This should probably also work from LMDE. Press and hold down left shift during boot to get the GRUB boot menu to show. Press the 'e' key to edit the boot parameters. Scroll down to the line starting with "linux" and on that line add the two parameters "rw init=/bin/bash" (without the quotes). That will boot you to a basic bash shell as root without needing the password. You can then run passwd to reset the root password, or passwd username to reset the password of another user.

Steps more detailed here: viewtopic.php?f=90&t=110928&p=621487#p621487. Though these are for Linux Mint 13, I think the steps would be very similar on LMDE.

[scotthge]

xenopeek, thank you for your reply. I will go over to my brothers house this week -end and follow your directions. Thank you so much, now I do not have to re-install the OS again.

scotthge

[ddurdle]

I wonder what the point of passwords are when a hack like this is easy enough to bypass a password.

Oh well.