Reset root password when running a forced fsck and single user mode doesn't work

[ScreechyNutz]

When rebooting your linux system, you will sometimes face this screen:



This can be a problem when you don't know what the root password is.

The following steps will get around this issue and reset your root password.

Step 1:

Boot up your system and hit the enter when you are prompted on startup to enter the Grub loading screen.

Step 2:

Use the arrow keys to select your operating system and hit the 'e' key.

Step 3:

Use the arrow keys again to select the kernel and press 'e' e.g.

"kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686 root=UUID=27f6ac23-638f-439a-8a97-2baaf6a32922 ro rhgb quiet"

Step 4:

Delete 'ro' from the line and amend 'init= /bin/bash' for CentOS and 'init= /bin/sh' for Debian

Step 5:

Hit 'Enter' to save and the press 'b' to boot

Step 6:

The system should now boot into a bash command line. Once in here you can mount the file system with:

mount -o remount, rw /

Step 7:

Once you have mounted the file system, you can then change the root password with:

passwd

Step 8:

Reboot the machine and once it is up to the fsck, you should be able to enter the new password and continue the fsck.