I've been assigned the task of recovering the root password on a system that has a lot of data on it but the only people who know the root password have died/retired on bad terms and will not supply such.

I've messed around trying to follow this: http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Re...escuemode.html

the best I can, but no dice. Now, Red Hat won't even boot and when the computer is turned on, after the BIOS message I get the following:


Memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) not within permissible range
blah blah blah

VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev dm-0
mount: error mountaing /dev/root on sysroot as ex3: invalid argument
setuproot: moving /dev failed: no such file or directory
setuproot: error mountain /proc: no such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: no such file or directory
switchroot: mount failed: no such file or directory
Kernel panic - not syncing: attempted to kill init!

Is the drive corrupted? Is it possible to save it? The software/data on this machine is quite valuable to our company and there exist quite a few things on it that are a mystery as well. Can anyone help please? I'm not computer illiterate (BS EE), just terrified that I've done something awful and want someone knowledgeable to help.

Give us some more info on what you did here. RedHat should install a secondary kernel into Grub so you should be able to hit any key when the message comes up to go into grub. Follow these instructions and try selecting the alternate kernel version.

At the GRUB splash screen at boot time, press any key to enter the GRUB interactive menu.
Select Red Hat Enterprise Linux with the version of the kernel that you wish to boot and type a to append the line.
Go to the end of the line and type single as a separate word (press the Spacebar and then type single). Press Enter to exit edit mode.

Once the server boots into single user mode just type 'passwd' and change the root user's password.

I have tried doing the a for append, and then typing single to no avail. After the first time I did this, it would no longer boot into Red Hat at all. Now, for whatever reason, I cannot get it to boot whatsoever and always get a kernel panic. I'm going to try what you said today, but any insight on how to stop the kernel panic would be much appreciated.

I know this is a double post, but I did exactly what you said and it wouldn't boot into single user mode, it gave me another script of kernel panic. Is there a way with recovery discs or anything to fix this?

Did you try the secondary kernel? When you go into grub you should see two kernels. If you are getting kernel panics on both the only option is going to be a re-install of the OS in most cases.