> actually it would be nice if I knew what the root password was.... > my problem is somehow it is trashed. can't log in as root to change it If you boot from the resc1440 disk, you can mount the filesystem, and remove the root password entirely. If you have shadowpasswords on, you will have to remove it in /etc/shado as well. Then reboot, login as root (no password), and set the password. rick --