System crash - what is root password?

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davidshane
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System crash - what is root password?

Post by davidshane »

My computer, after an fsck failure, is booting to a prompt that only allows me to either enter the root password, or restart. But I didn't create a root account, and my user password doesn't work. What do I do?
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miket

Re: System crash - what is root password?

Post by miket »

Hi !
davidshane wrote:My computer, after an fsck failure, is booting to a prompt that only allows me to either enter the root password, or restart. But I didn't create a root account, and my user password doesn't work. What do I do?
This is an interesting issue ... with your root account not set for login you are pretty stuck.
However, like most things in the UNIX world there is a way around this !

So, boot your computer from the Linux Mint Live CDROM, when you are at the desktop open a terminal and run the following command :

Code: Select all

fsck -y /dev/yourdisk
Where /dev/yourdisk is the device name of the disk you need to run fsck on, for example /dev/sda1

Once this has run and made any repairs necessary, just logout of the liveCD desktop and reboot your machine, hopefully
it will come back up OK.

Let us know how you get on ...

Mike.
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davidshane
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Re: System crash - what is root password?

Post by davidshane »

OK, will try. It wasn't something I anticipated. Makes me wonder why Linux Mint defaults to not create a root account.
miket

Re: System crash - what is root password?

Post by miket »

Hi !
davidshane wrote:OK, will try. It wasn't something I anticipated. Makes me wonder why Linux Mint defaults to not create a root account.
I must admit, I "Always" enable the root account at installation time as there are a number of occasions when you
have to log in as user root as you have found :)

Mike.
proxima_centauri

Re: System crash - what is root password?

Post by proxima_centauri »

davidshane wrote:OK, will try. It wasn't something I anticipated. Makes me wonder why Linux Mint defaults to not create a root account.
I believe MintAssistant asks you directly if you would like to set up a root password after installation.
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davidshane
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Re: System crash - what is root password?

Post by davidshane »

Success! And as an added bonus, my computer is no longer running 10 degrees hotter than normal.
miket

Re: System crash - what is root password?

Post by miket »

Hi !
davidshane wrote:Success! And as an added bonus, my computer is no longer running 10 degrees hotter than normal.
That's great !
I have no idea why it's running cooler though :)

Enjoy Mint !

Mike.
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