After installing 185 update/fixes to UBUNTU last week my admin password is no longer accepted

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enter grub during the start up process (you may need to press esc)
do to your default boot entry and press e
no go to the kernel line and add the word "single" (without the "") to the end of the line
press esc to go back to the parent menu
press b to boot the kernel

now at the prompt type
passwd

then press enter and type in your new password and then type reboot

also if you have another account on your computer (which you should have because working in root all the time is not safe)
login with the other account and open a terminal
type sudo passwd root
then press enter and follow teh directions

Thank you for your answer. I am a newbie to UBUNTU and having looked at you
answer, I have more questions.

What is grub?

What is my default boot entry?

The version of UBUNTU on the machine was installed by Dell at the factory.
The pc is a Dell Inspiron MINI 9 with solid state drives (no hard drive or
cd drive).

When it starts up you get the Dell page from which you can get to the BIOS
settings, then for about 1 second you get displayed in the top left of the
screen MBR then the UBUNTU logo appears above an orange sliding bar showing
ubuntu loading then the user interface screen loads.

If you press Esc as soon as MBR appears on the screen MBR 2FA: appears and
UBUNTU doesn't load.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "unixchaos" <email address hidden>
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 10:23 PM
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: [Question #68978]: After installing 185 update/fixes to
UBUNTUlast week my admin password is no longer accepted

> Your question #68978 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68978
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> unixchaos proposed the following answer:
> enter grub during the start up process (you may need to press esc)
> do to your default boot entry and press e
> no go to the kernel line and add the word "single" (without the "") to the
> end of the line
> press esc to go back to the parent menu
> press b to boot the kernel
>
> now at the prompt type
> passwd
>
> then press enter and type in your new password and then type reboot
>
>
> also if you have another account on your computer (which you should have
> because working in root all the time is not safe)
> login with the other account and open a terminal
> type sudo passwd root
> then press enter and follow teh directions
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68978/+confirm?answer_id=1
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68978
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

grub is your boot loader its used to boot the machine into ubuntu. when you first turn on your computer its blackscreen. something pops up and it might say press esc for menu for like a quick second. when you press esc it gets you into the grub boot menu. and if you bought it from dell. this is where grub is thi sis quoted from you "then for about 1 second you get displayed in the top left of the screen MBR then".. ass soon as you see that display press esc and then you will be in grub then just follow my instructions as you did b4. ohh your default boot entry is going to be probilly the first line after you press esc they may be one item there or 4 pick the first one to do the steps. like go to the first one and press e

Thanks for your reply, with rapid finger movements managed to get through
and change password. However this did not solve my problem. Have done
further investigations and problem seems to be with GNOME desktop
application, as I have found other users who have had same problem as me
after installing 188 updates notified automatically when connected to web.
They cannot now logon to change network settings and like me know they
haven't changed passoword.
They have yet to find solution to problem, unless you have an answer.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "unixchaos" <email address hidden>
Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2009 7:44 PM
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: [Question #68978]: After installing 185 update/fixes
toUBUNTUlast week my admin password is no longer accepted

> Your question #68978 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68978
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> unixchaos proposed the following answer:
> grub is your boot loader its used to boot the machine into ubuntu. when
> you first turn on your computer its blackscreen. something pops up and
> it might say press esc for menu for like a quick second. when you press
> esc it gets you into the grub boot menu. and if you bought it from
> dell. this is where grub is thi sis quoted from you "then for about 1
> second you get displayed in the top left of the screen MBR then".. ass
> soon as you see that display press esc and then you will be in grub then
> just follow my instructions as you did b4. ohh your default boot entry
> is going to be probilly the first line after you press esc they may be
> one item there or 4 pick the first one to do the steps. like go to the
> first one and press e
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68978/+confirm?answer_id=3
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/68978
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

I have solved the problem. It would seem that one of the 188 updates which were installed, changed the keyboard mapping from UK to US and thus when, after the updates had been installed, I tried typing my password, but, with the mapping having been changed, the characters I thought I was typing were in fact different, therefore the password was not recognised. I found this quite by chance whilst typing a document with special characters.
Being a newbie to UBUNTU I had to take advice on how to change the keyboard mapping and once this was done, my password, which I had not changed, was accepted.

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