Am Montag, 21. Juli 2025, 02:56:02 CEST schrieb Kent West: > On 7/20/25 07:45, Andrew W Rambus wrote: > > Hello , I have a Microsoft Surface 4 ; I bought at a yard sale. ,and > > I’m trying to turn it on , and I can’t get past the Debian login > > GNU/Linux 12 login & password !! > > Can someone please help me , open this laptop > If you are able to boot from another device like an USB-stick with a linux- livefile on, you may mount the partition with /etc/passwd on. Then you can edit /etc/passwd to a blank password (in /etc/passwd remove the "x", so that it looks like
root::root:0:0:root:/bin/bash Then you should be able, to boot into without any password. If success, then add a new root password. Another option is, to use "Kon-Boot"-live system, this passes the password question and gives you full access to the system. Kon-Boot (aka KonBoot), is available for Windows, Linux and MacSystems. There are two versions available 1.0 and 2.0. Old 1.0 is no more downloadable but can be used from the Falcon4-Live-CD and (if remember correctly) also from Hiren's-Boot-CD. Hope this helps, good luck! Hans
