Hi:

I really liked Fedora 7, but I built a customized system for my father who wants no part of Linux. Unfortunately, I can't login when the kernel boots and prompts me at username and password. I went through the commands to change the password but still can't log in.

I downloaded Fedora 8, set the boot properties in bios, and Fedora 7 still loads; so I'm still encountering the same problem.

To be more descriptive, here is what's listed at the installation screen - if that's the correct terminology - when I'm prompted to hit 1 prior to the kernel boot:


Fedora (2.6.20-2931fx7xen)
"""""" (2.6.22.4-65.fc7)
"""""" (2.6.22.1-41.fc7)
"""""" (2.6.20-292513.f37xen)
Other


My Dad wants Windows XP Pro SP3 :-( How can I go about retrieving admin
privileges to get on the system?

Thanks in abundance for any advice.

Best,

Steve

You can always get in in "single-user" mode. When the GRUB menu appears, hit any key to stop the countdown, <<maybe esc to get out of graphical mode>>, and "e" to get it edit mode. Select the "kernel" line, and "e" again. Add the word "single" (no quotes) a the end of the line.
hit enter to save the chang and then "b" to boot. The machine will now come up with root privileges and no password required.

But....can you not install Windows by simply booting up from the Windows CD?

No, I can't, which is odd to say the least. I would like to keep the current grub version - correct me if I'm wrong - but it seems to work fine
with Windows; however, the person that wrote that may have been mistaken?

Back to the boot properties:

After I select the boot sequence properties in BIOS, save and exit, Fedora
still begins to load on startup - I'm a bit perplexed by that. But I'm sure it's something that I'm doing on my end.

Thanks so much for your help. I'll let you know how it goes.

Cheers,

Steve

GRUB will not stay around after you install windows - windows overwrites the MBR automatically, which is where your GRUB is probably located. And pixellany is correct - you should not need to enter fedora if all you want to do is install windows.

O.K. I finally got around to trying your edit suggestion. Everything was fine, and I arrived at the following prompt with the following three optins:

root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.22.4-65.fc7 no root=LABEL=/rhgb quiet
initrd/initrd-2.6.22.4-65.fc7.img

I selected the second option and entered single - no quotes - pressed enter, then b.


The problem is that I can't get passed the following line during the boot process: sh-3.2#

And no, I can't boot from the Windows or Linux 8 CD's either.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Steve