Hi,

After downloading and unpacking a .tar.gz package and unpacked it in one of the
directories, I could not login my computer.

Whenever I turn on my computer, a small enter password dialogue box comes on. I tried entering a few of my passwords ,but still could not login my computer.
I also can not call up the BIOS screen like before. A normal boot for my computer would be a selection screen comes on for the selection of OS.

I am using Federa 19 with dual boot Window 7.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks and regards.

Hi guys,

Just to let you know I am able to get back into normal dual boot screen now.

It is OK now.

Thanks.

BIOS or Power On password?

Hi,

The password dialogue box should not be asking for the BIOS password or the power-on password
because I have not set those passwords.

A normal boot would have been a splash screen came on and then
automatically booting into Linux if I did not select to boot into
Window 7.

In this incident, the Linux splash screen does not came on, and instead,
a blank screen with the small dialogue box asking for password came on.
I tried with a few of my know passwords but could not login my laptop

And the next day, the normal login splash screen from where I select which OS to boot into
came back on as in a normal boot and everything seemed to be O K for now.

But I guess I should change some of my passwords - those I have used to try to login.

Thanks.

Regards.

Obviously. You never should have replied to this. You have no idea at this point exactly what has been done to your computer.

Hi,

You are absolutely right.
It is better to be safe than sorrow, I should change all my passwords ASAP.

Any guys had been in similar situation before ?

Thanks.

Regards.

You probably need to assume something like, "a root-kit has just been installed." Or something along those lines. There is no reason for a password prompt to mysteriously appear at boot time ... let alone to then just-as-mysteriously disappear.

1 members found this post helpful.

If you have not resolved this problem, the very minimum information you should post is the name of the tar.gz file, the location from which you downloaded it and the location in which you 'unpacked' it. Just 'unpacking' or extracting the file should not present what you saw.

3 members found this post helpful.

Too resemble BIOS password. I agree that you had not touched it, but can you check that ?
Still you able to login into BIOS setting by pressing some magic key ?

Indeed, please let this be known.

Hi,

I have looked into my BIOS settings and chances were the enter password prompt was indeed from the
BIOS because I did see in BIOS, User Password was indicated as "Not Installed".

So, in order to check and see, and for the very first time, I set the User Password in BIOS. And when
I powered up my laptop, the enter password dialogue box did come on. And I logged in with my password.
Now, BIOS indicates User Password as "installed", because I have set it.

The tar.gz file downloaded was for the installation of WordPress on my laptop for learning purposes, and
it runs O. K. (strangely thought I do not need to do ./configure). The name of the file was wordpress-4.8.tar.gz
which I downloaded from http://wordpress.org/download .

So, for now, I have to assume my laptop has been compromised.

Would certain hardware issues might have been the cause of this problem ?

Thanks guys.

Regards.

Did you tried to boot from rescue CD ?
If you can boot and mount your root, then try to re-install bootloader.
The dialog window puzzling me.

Glad that worked out.
Now. backups...

Hi,

Good suggestions, but I don't have a rescue CD, and I no longer have the source CD
which I use to install Fedora 19.

The up side of this is, now I have two login sessions for better protection of my
laptop.

Thanks.

Have a great day, guys.