First, your problem with (not) running vi when you use the recovery disks
may simply be a path problem. Try running it with its full path name (which
is probably /mnt/usr/bin/vi) and see if that lets you start vi. (Or were you
having a different problem with vi?)
As to your procedure, it sounds fine, which causes me to suspect that you
are making an error of implementation. A summary won't let me spot that --
try posting the actual series of commands you enter to make the copy, change
its permissions, cat it, and unmount the filesystem.
How are you rebooting the computer? It's a logn shot, but I'm wondering if
the filesystem may not be sync'd before the reboot.
Finally, if you post a followup, please leave off the HTML repeat of your
message. All of us who are likely to be able to help you read text e-mail
just fine.
At 02:57 PM 4/22/99 +1000, Edgar Petrone wrote [abridged]:
>I have a computer running linux which I do not have the root password to. I
am unable to get into single user mode from the LILO prompt on this machine
so I tried a different approach. It seems whatever changes I make to the
hard drive disappear after I boot the hard drive as normal. It seems to me
the file is somehow being copied to a ram disk or something and the copy is
not being written to the hard drive. What I wanted to do was modify the file
using vi (which I can access when I boot the pc normally but not from the
bootdisk for some reason) and then use the boot disk again to copy the
modified file to shadow and then change the permissions. This should re-set
my root password if only I could copy files on the mounted hard drive. Any
ideas?
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
762 Garland Drive
Palo Alto, CA 94303-3603
650.328.4219 voice [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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