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

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.

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

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.


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

... 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

Related posts:

1. Install Windows XP on your Asus Eee PC using a USB flash drive
2. Really useful firefox keyboard shortcuts