Hello all, i have a friend who forgot the user and password of his red hat partition (he also forgot the root password), hao can i recover the name of the user and the password? Ciao, Javier linux user #393724

The name of the user is stored in /etc/passwd....but you wont be able to view the file if you cannot logon at all. You can either boot into single user mode by typing something like "linux 1" at the boot prompt and reset root's password or use a live cd distro like knoppix, mount the root partition and edit /etc/passwd and take out the X in root's entry. Reboot and you can log on as root without a passsword....don't forget to set one straight away though! Search these forums for "root password" as the solution has been posted in depth many times before.

Hi, If your boot loader is GRUB then ... on the very first screen where you select for either Windows or Linux OS for booting (in case of dual boot), select the Linux option by up/down keys...then press E, now you will find a line with a curser blinking in the last ... give a single space and write single ....then press B. It will start in a single user mode and will stop at: $ You should type here ... $ passwd root It will ask you to enter the new root password ... do so and play again with Linux. Note: But it will work only if you have not set the password for boot loader (or you know that password ). Sandy!

If the boot loader is password-protected you can use the Knoppix CD with these steps 1.Boot Knoppix 2.mount the Linux system with 'mount -o rw /dev/<linuxpartition> /mnt/<linuxpartition>' 3.'chroot /mnt/<linuxpartition> passwd' good luck