Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!pyramid!ctnews!mitisft!dold
From: dold@mitisft.Convergent.COM (Clarence Dold)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: passwd file corrupted
Message-ID: <756@mitisft.Convergent.COM>
Date: 29 Jun 89 16:39:51 GMT
References: <1127@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU>
Organization: Convergent Technologies, San Jose, CA
Lines: 28

in article <1127@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU>, rhealey@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU (Rob Healey) says:

> 	If the person in question can get to the power switch to bring the
> 	machine into administration mode then all the software security is
> 	pretty much moot. Also, the quickest way to fix things up would
> 	be to fire up the original installation/distribution tape and go
> 	into "maintainance" mode. Once in maintainance mode you can mount
> 	/ and edit the password file. Of course one needs to find that
> 	original installation tape/disk that's hiding in some mysterious
> 	dark corner...

I started to mail a reply, when I realized that Washington University was 
one of the recipients in a 'University Gift Program' where we gave away
several hundred MiniFrames.
Two of the reasons we gave them away:
10 Mhz 68010 wasn't state of the art anymore.
These models were Floppy only, couldn't be upgraded to QIC.

If this is a floppy only system, he is pretty much out of luck.
The disk could be added as drive one to another machine, and mounted,
or he could back up what he can, and then 'clone' the disk via
the Diagnostics across the 'cluster' a proprietary LAN.

-- 
---
Clarence A Dold - dold@tsmiti.Convergent.COM		(408) 434-5293
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		P.O.Box 6685, San Jose, CA 95150-6685	MS#10-007