PDA

View Full Version : [ubuntu] 8.10 installation problems



thecraiginator
December 4th, 2008, 04:12 PM
Although a former level 3 tech support guy at Dell, I'm a Newb with Linux and installed Ubuntu 8.10 on a 2nd partition on my hard drive on my laptop to test it out prior to migrating my entire system to Linux (this is coming once I'm more comfortable with the OS).

I installed from within Windows using the CD provided by mail but unfortunately had a Dell Draft-N wireless card and had "some" difficulty getting it working within NDIS Wrapper. Per some forum recommendations, I uninstalled Ubuntu and then reinstalled it so I could reattempt the NDIS wrapper but on the reinstall I changed the password I used during the install. Now neither the original password nor the 2nd that I used will allow root access. Could someone please direct me as to what to do to install Ubuntu on my system so I can gain root access again? Every time I try it fails authentication. I have tried reinstalling with both passwords as well as formatting the partition and reinstalling (still within windows), but suspect that the root password data is not actually being reinstalled and is stored elsewhere and files created are being reused. I have MUCH data on my system within the Windows environment, so wiping the entire drive and losing my Windows install is not yet an option.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

taurus
December 4th, 2008, 04:21 PM
Can you boot your laptop into recovery mode and reset your password?


passwd <username>
shutdown -r now
Replace the <username> with your login name.

meindian523
December 4th, 2008, 04:49 PM
taurus:
He's using Wubi.Does Wubi have a recovery mode?

thecraiginator
December 4th, 2008, 05:51 PM
Will give that a try shortly and will post result (if any) - thanks!!!