If you're responding to my post about updating to 7.1 using the CD, there's no 'root' involved:
1) Download the 7.1 iso to a computer with a CD-RW drive
2) Burn the iso onto a CDR
3) reboot your SME server using the 7.1 CD
The installation should recognize that you have SME installed already, and should either do an upgrade installation or should at least offer to do an upgrade.
This is how all of the SME 7.0 RCx versions worked; I have NOT done a CD-based upgrade from 7.0 to 7.1.