there is alwalys the single user way of getting into the system, to do so here is a cut and paste from one of my old replies to another person who wanted to getinto the system without having the root password. Ofcourse I will assume that you have physical access to the system. via its own keyboard and monitor.
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the way to get into the e-smith single user is quite simple, it just follows the same pattern that redhat uses (being based on the redhat distro
when your comp boots up and you see the graphic of e-smith, you have 5 seconds to hit "ctrl-x" and then type in "esmith single" and this should let you boot into single user for maintenance mode as root, very handy when you forget the root password too, as the typing "passwd" allows you to specify a new root password. (also very dangerous if you are not the real sysadmin). There is also a way to protect from unauthorized acces with a second LILO password.
Once inside in single user mode you can change the password of root by the "passwd" function but be carefull on a succesfull reboot not to add an ibay in your e-smith manager if you think it has gone as it might be actually on the system but the configuration may be corrupted. before doing so you can also run the fsck utility just to nmake sure but better still disconnect one disk before runningany damaging commands to the system (thats your hope for a second life!) another options ia as fiollows...
Once inside single user use "mc" and navigate to the directory and adjust your system . that way you can stop the unwanted from happening. also if needed leave out (physically disconnect the raid second disk)the second hard disk before doing this so atleast you have a second chance if something goes wrong !! (really hope not). By the way to be extra sure you can sve the config file on a floppy once in single user mode, and even throw in an extra disk and save your Ibays to it so atleast you have the data (if you save to a disk formatted in fat32 you can even read your stuff in windoze) of course you will have to mount the disk first ion fat32 (assuming its already formatted in fat32 mode)
or else the last and a bit "all around town" method incase you cannot get along with the first few options is to use a system already mounted in linux eg. mandrake 7 or 8 or rh 7.1 and physically connect and mount one of your raid drives to it then save whatever is needed (mainly ibays and the config files) or else just install mandrake or redhat standard versions on an additional drive and recover your data (worst comes to worst you can even use one of your raid drives)
lastly there is this program in windows called ext2explorer and works quite well if you only need to read the ext2 disk and copy your stuff ilke imp files from the ibays. To find it but try
http://freshmeat.net as the link i found in the history is
http://freshmeat.net/projects/explore2fs or the ome page at
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htmdo let us know how you manage to save your skin
regards,
aniston
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