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ADM Blog
17Apr/090

Reset system password for EeePC


If you managed to lose your Eee PC password, you can reset it with a pretty simple hack without resetting it with the built-in "Restore Factory Settings" and lose everything on your drive.

The first step in recovering your password is to remove the login password request so you can access your system.

Removing the login password request

To remove the password request, you have to delete a configuration file from your file system. You can do this by entering the single user mode.

1. Entering boot loader of the Eee PC

boot window for eee pc

Turn on your Eee Pc and as soon as the first screen appears (the one with the "Press F2 to run setup") pres and hold pressed the f9 key, until the Grub main screen will appear.

Click to enlarge

Your options are:

  • Normal Boot
  • Perform Disk Scan
  • Restore Factory Settings

2. Booting Single User Mode

Select Perform Disk Scan and press "e" key to edit the line. Now select the second line (the one that begins with "kernel") and pres "e" again

Click to enlarge

The cursor will blink at the end of the line. To enter the single mode you have to replace the string XANDROSSCAN=y with XANDROSBOOTDEBUG=y. Make sure you typed it correctly.

Click to enlarge

Now press enter and then press "b" key to boot single mode user.

3. Removing the configuration file with BusyBox

Now you'll enter BusyBox, a small Linux-based system, with an ash shell. With this shell you'll have to delete the configuration file (requireLogin) located in /home/user/.AsusLauncher/. This way you'll remove the login password request !

Once in the BusyBox shell, execute the following commands:

for the Eee PC 701 or Eee PC 904 HD:

- mount /dev/sda2 /mnt-user/

- cd /mnt-user/home/user/

- rm .AsusLauncher/requireLogin

- exit

for the Eee PC 900:

- mknod /dev/sdb b 8 16

- mknod /dev/sdb1 b 8 17

- mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt-user/

- rm /mnt-user/user/.AsusLauncher/requireLogin

- exit

Click to enlarge

... press return to reboot and to enter your Eee PC without the login request ;) This was the the hardest part. Keep reading

Resetting the old password setting a new one

Now you're able to read and edit your files, but you can't administrate your Eee PC; you have to set a new password

Open the terminal (browse for it or just press CTRL+ALT+T) and type:  sudo passwd user

Press enter and type the new password. Do the same for the root password by typing: sudo passwd

As promised, you're playing again with your Eee PC without any data loss! Have fun ;)

Comments (0) Trackbacks (1)
  1. Pressing F9 did not work, sent me straight into normal boot up.

    if i bring up a terminal box every time i enter a command to alter the software it will ask for a password

    cannot seem to get around these two problems

    regards andy

  2. It’s F9, be patient. This worked for me, although my cousin’s EEE PC 900 required the set of commands intended for the other models.

  3. i just got an asus EeePc Linux i got to the step 3 and got confused what do i do then

  4. every time i press F9, the windows xp screen runs and then the username-password screen.
    dad’s friend gave the eee pc to us so know nothing about him and stuff..

  5. excellent solution. Thanks a lot. It worked right away!

  6. Changed to XANDROSBOOTDEBUG=y, hit enter – then pressed “b” and nothing happened.

  7. Hi! Kim here. I have forgotten my password. I have a little Asus eepc laptop with windows 7 starter pack on it which expired and the F9 trick didn’t work. Please help. Thank you
    Kim.

  8. I have a asus eee Linux and I followed every step but once rebooted went back to the password screen :(

  9. I have an eee pc. 701sd. I forgot my password because I haven’t used it in forever. I’ve tried the f9 thing but nothing happened

  10. Good it works thx

  11. reboot worked, the only problem left is that I cannot enter a new password :/
    I used ctrl+alt+T, typed “sudo passwd user”, pressed enter and when I wanted to type in a new password I can´t type anything in it..

  12. I realize this is years old but I wanted to say Thanks!

    I came across an old EEE pc that I couldn’t remember the password to and your article fixed it.

    Thanks!


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