1. Boot the LiveCD or rescue CD/USB, and mount your root (/) partition. For example:
mkdir /mnt/root
mount /dev/sdaX /mnt/root
and then edit the password file with your editor:
vim /mnt/root/etc/shadow
and then delete the second field on the root line:
root:$1$KmZw.u7l$JI6aYJRrSU7ZcUivaNQpZ1:15833:0:99999:7:::
2. Boot the LiveCD or rescue CD/USB, and mount your root (/) partition. For example:
mount -o remount,rw /dev/sdaX /mnt/root
chroot /mnt/root
passwd root
3. INIT or /bin/bash mode
Another trick is to add “init=/bin/bash” (LILO “linux init=/bin/bash” or add it to the Grub “kernel” line). This will dump you to a bash prompt much earlier than single user mode, and a lot less has been initialised, mounted, etc. You’ll definitely need the “-o remount,rw” here. Also note that other filesystems aren’t mounted at all, so you may need to mount them manually if you need them. Look in /etc/fstab for the device names.
passwd root
🙂