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If it was a regular install, you could use a livedisk and poke around in the fstab boot.lst and so on.<BR>
You could also see if you could single-user start-up from the boot menu, but I am not sure if you are even getting as far as a boot menu<BR>
VMs have lots of eccentricities as compared to regular installs. <BR>
<BR>
Can you look at the vm hard drive through your main filesystem? It may be just a set of large files in one of the (possibly hidden) vmware folders (or virtualbox folders or whatever).<BR>
<BR>
If it is not loaded with files or some-such precious things, just blow it out and make a new one. This is how my friends who manage data centers seem to handle it. Apparently VMWare server will do all of this automagically. I don't know how exactly they set their systems to do that. <BR>
<BR>
-Wolf<BR>
<BR>
-----Original Message-----<BR>
<B>From</B>: John G. Heim <<A HREF="mailto:%22John%20G.%20Heim%22%20%3cjheim@math.wisc.edu%3e">jheim@math.wisc.edu</A>><BR>
<B>Reply-to</B>: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux! <ale@ale.org><BR>
<B>To</B>: <A HREF="mailto:ale@ale.org">ale@ale.org</A><BR>
<B>Subject</B>: [ale] howto force "give root password" prompt<BR>
<B>Date</B>: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:46:03 -0600<BR>
<BR>
<PRE>
I have a problem with a vmware virtual machine. It's running debian/lenny.
After a power failure, it tends to not boot. It ssits at a prompt saying,
"Give root password for maintenance (or type control-D for normal startup."
I need to be able to get past this prompt if I'm not in the physical
presence of the machine. I can log into the vmware server and hard boot it.
But it comes up the same way. There is a vmware command for answering
console questions. But I don't know if it will work. Other than pulling the
plug, how can I test it? I want to somehow make it come up with that prompt
to see if the vmware answer command will let me get past it.
So this is not really a vmware question. It's just a linux question. What
causes a linux machine to come up asking if you want to enter maintenance
mode and can I artificially reproduce those conditions?
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