Removing an os without admin priv's

1

so here’s my predicament:

I have this really old machine running mandrake linux on it, and I don’t know the root or admin password because the machine is like five years old. So I need to remove the os so I can put fc2 on it and run it as a server…

I can’t get it to boot from the cd because it completely ignores it when booting, I told it to boot from the disk but it doesn’t, even though I know it sees the disk because when it’s booted in mandrake it sees it… it’s simply disc1 iso file that I used to put linux on this machine… I also tried deleting every file on the computer :smiley: but I don’t have permissions :upset:

anybody have any ideas :ear:

thanks :slight_smile:

2

I also got to some menu a couple times back that I can’t seem to get too now, it was like mandrake setup or something, and I bet if I could get back to that I could reset the admin pass…

3

Uhh, take the harddrive, move it to another computer, wipe it clean, then reshove-in.

4

You could also take a win98 boot disk if you have one handy and use that to get to DOS, then format C: then load fc2. Thats the route i’ve taken on a few occasions when nothing else seemed to work.

5

well… I don’t have the win98 boot disk, plus I don’t know if you knew it doens’t have windows on it right now… but I’ll try the xp disk…

6

Hmm… what kernel version is it? If you can find that out, you might be able to find an exploit and hack your way in :smiley:

or sudo may work… try doing “sudo ls -l /root/”

Security sucks sometimes, don’t it? :-/

[edit]The FC2 setup will let you wipe disks :)[/edit]

7

yeah but the fc2 setup won’t start… I just tried booting from the windows disc instead of the fedora one and it gave me more of a message, last time it completely ignored it, this time it said “Cannot boot from cd -cdcode4”

or something like that… that leads me to the conclusion that my fc2 cd no longer works… which is odd because I used the same one on this machine :huh:

I’ll try sudo, thanks

8

you could use the xp cd to format it, then format it again when you install fc2 or whatever it is you’re installing…

:slight_smile:

9

lmao, I typed the sudo stuff and this is what it gave me:

We trust you have recieved the usual lecture from the local System Administrator. It usually boiles down to these two things:
#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.

Password:

well… it turns out I don’t know the root password, and that’s why I can’t do anything and why I can’t login as root… so um… how do I find out the kernal version?

10

k… if I delete the boot directory, which I can, will it not boot up anymore allowing me to boot fedora or windows?

11

:open_mouth: You can delete the boot directory?

It shouldn’t boot then, but make sure that you know that you can boot it other ways… don’t want to be left with an unbootable PC :stuck_out_tongue:

Kernel version: “uname -a”

12

do you know what this error is:
CDBOOT: Cannot boot from cd - Code: 4

:huh:

13

kick the sh*t out of the hard drive:P

j/k

use a magnet

14

that won’t let me use it again :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: