<p>I had to do the exact same thing to reset a vmware machine. It was a nightmare. <br>
</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On May 22, 2012 8:01 PM, "Justin Goldberg" <<a href="mailto:justgold79@gmail.com">justgold79@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
I have a vmware esxi 3.5.1 server I inherited from someone else with a<br>
lost password.<br>
<br>
My options are:<br>
<br>
-boot with slax and modify the /etc/shadow and passwd files within the<br>
latest modified state.tgz file, and create another root level user and<br>
I can then change the root password (saving a backup of the file just<br>
in case).<br>
<br>
-null the root password, which I've read on <a href="http://vmware.com" target="_blank">vmware.com</a> can cause<br>
problems (but its a standalone server with no NFS and has been offline<br>
for a year)<br>
<br>
-do a reinstall from cd, which will reset the password and manually<br>
add the datastores back.<br>
<br>
Fdisk -l shows 1 VMFS partition, but I can list files on the auto<br>
mounted /mnt/sda2, sda3, sda5, and sda6 in slax. Also this server has<br>
6 scsi drives.<br>
<br>
I'd blow the data away but it has a licensed copy of vmware. Also I'm<br>
curious what is running on it.<br>
<br>
Also does anyone know if windows 2003 or 2008 runs well within linux vmware?<br>
<br>
Thanks<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
<br>
Justin Goldberg<br>
<br>
*<a href="mailto:justgold79@gmail.com">justgold79@gmail.com</a>*<br>
<a href="tel:%28504%29%20208-1158" value="+15042081158">(504) 208-1158</a><br>
<a href="http://gplus.to/goldberg" target="_blank">http://gplus.to/goldberg</a><br>
<a href="http://twitter.com/justingoldberg" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/justingoldberg</a><br>
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</blockquote></div>