passwd: Authentication token lock busy/ unable to chg to rw
 

Hey All, My name is Tom. I would say I am new to Linux even though I install and work on several favors of Linux and Unix. My new job now is more Linux involved and I can sure use the help.
My problem is I cant chg the pw due to passwd: Authentication token lock busy. I read up on chging the write access but nothing I tried has worked access from root user:
mount -o rw,remount
mount -n -o rw,remount
mount -n -o rw,remount / -force
mount -n -o rw,remount /(the directory of the pw etc/shadow -force