0

I have an installation of Ubuntu 16.04 on a dual boot machine.

Today I went to log in and it wont accept my password.

I tried following this guide: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/resetpassword

I ran:

Press Enter for maintenance
(or press Control-D to continue):
root@mikes-ubuntu:`# mount -o rw,remount /
root@mikes-ubuntu:`# ls /home
root@mikes-ubuntu:`#

then

root@mikes-ubuntu:`# ls /home
root@mikes-ubuntu:`#

According to the tutorial the users should be listed and from there you can reset the password. However, no user is listed at all....

Then I added a new user. However I cant log into that user either...

Press Enter for maintenance
(or press Control-D to continue):
root@mikes-ubuntu:`# mount -o rw,remount /
root@mikes-ubuntu:`# ls /home
root@mikes-ubuntu:`#
root@mikes-ubuntu:`# ls /home
root@mikes-ubuntu:`# ls
snap
root@mikes-ubuntu:`# adduser mike2
Adding new user 'mike2' ...

Does anyone have any tips on how to salvage this machine?

4
  • /home was probably on a different partition, and thus you haven't mounted it, or to a lesser extent was encrypted & will remain so until you use the correct password. I haven't lost a passwd in years, but I used to modify /etc/passwd (or probably it's shadow file) & replace the hashed field with one I knew, but it was so long ago I'd not want to advise... (the same approach done with bypassing windoze passwords; just different filename/locations)
    – guiverc
    Jun 6, 2018 at 0:54
  • @guiverc makes a good point - your home directory might be on a different partition. Use the command lsblk to show your partitions and see if you recognise which one is your /home directory.
    – pHeLiOn
    Jun 6, 2018 at 1:02
  • lsblk -f will tell you what filesystems they are as well. A Linux partition will probably be ext4.
    – pHeLiOn
    Jun 6, 2018 at 3:07
  • Thanks a lot for the responses! That helped. So my /home DIR is on sda7 and I was able to mount that and reset my password. But I still get the same error. Turns out my password was right the whole time. When I log in a black screen flashes up. It says " /dev/sda6: clean, 355936/915712 fliles, 2652471/3661824 blocks" Then it goes back to the log in screen. I do not get an incorrect password warning. Does anyone know what that might mean? Seems like I'm stuck in a login loop....
    – climbah
    Jun 6, 2018 at 5:24

1 Answer 1

1

Thanks folks, doing Press Ctrl+ALT+F3. on the start up page help me fix this.

Then I ran:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get -y install fglrx
sudo apt-get -y install lubuntu-desktop

More instructions here https://askubuntu.com/a/223503

NOTE: If you do not get an incorrect password warning this in not a wrong password issue.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .