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How do I get past login in start up?

e14 Contributor

Getting back to rpi after a long break, I find that I can't input the correct login name and password. Using  'pi' and 'raspberry' respectively as suggested by a book is not effective  Can someone please help?

  • Hi Both - I'm going to move this discussion over the Raspberry Pi group - there's a lot of folks over there that can probably help you with this one image

     

    Nicole

  • Sounds like you've changed the password of the pi user.

    As it's not possible to boot in single user mode and override any security, the fasted way would be to reinstall you SDCard with a fresh copy of Debian Wheezy.

     

    You could also try to mount the SD card partition on a linux box try to set the password back in /etc/shadow.

    The string would be : $6$OYutr90v$4BAZLmsHs4K2FxxkniLx6PNANWephlcyB88F4uL3VeNSJhqXzU4p3blgCV2uo5ThGo6kZjpeDggad8hARkvy01

     

    Be sure to change the password again afterwards.

     

    Hope this helps a bit.

  • in reply to martijnl

    Thanks for your reply and that of others. I've had to install a new SD card with Debian Wheezy and this worked!

  • As suggested, you COULD just reinstall the SD card and start anew. But you lose all the modifications you did to your SD card. On the other hand, starting fresh with a modern distribution can be good too.

     

    Before wiping the card, you can backup your data. If the 'pi is your only Linux machine, you are probably better off getting a second SD card and then mounting the original SD card in an USB reader.

     

    But, contrary to what was said above, you can hack yourself back into your 'pi.

     

    Use a computer to mount the SD card. The computer will probably be Windows (which I don't have).

     

    You can then edit the file "commandline.txt" or "cmdline.txt" (you'll recognize it when you see it). If there is an "init=...." there, change it to "init=/bin/sh". If you don't see any "init=" in that file, add it at the end (init=/bin/sh).

     

    Now you can boot, and will get a VERY basic raspberry pi up and running. And you're logged in as root. Issue:

     

      mount / -o rw,remount

     

    and then edit /etc/shadow . Now, for the "pi" user (probably the bottom one) remove everything starting with $6$ ending just before the : (and then a number).

    You'll probably end up (barring typos):

      pi::15536:0:99999:7:::

    Save the file. Then:

      mount /dev/mmcblk0 /boot

    and edit /boot/cmdline.txt Restore the original configuration. Save it.

    Type

      cd /

      umount /boot

      sync

      mount / -o remount,ro

      sync

     

    and then powercycle your 'pi. It should come up again, but now without a password for the user pi. Add one again asap.....