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Sad story short, my brother has passed away. For personal reasons i have to get into his laptop. Sometimes when i open it, it puts me right to the desktop without password, but sometimes it requires password i obviously do not know.

So my questions are

  • is there a way to change the password via terminal while it autologs
  • is there a chance of me deleting memory content while i try to do it through recovery mode
  • is there a way to view current password

Thank you in advance for you answers.

Daniel Chudárek
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1 Answers1

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One easy, safe method of accessing data is to:

  • Create an Ubuntu LiveUSB.
  • Boot into the "Try Ubuntu" environment.
  • Mount the hard drive
  • Copy all the data that you wish to preserve onto some other media.
  • Test the other media to ensure the data is readable.
  • Now it is safe to wipe the old machine and dispose/reinstall

Keep in mind that sometimes folks using the term "password" actually mean encryption passphrase, which is something completely different from a real "password".

  • Since your system has autologin, it does not seem to be encrypted. But a directory or file might be. Discussion about encryption is for future readers who might be misdirected to this question.

If a system or directory or file really is encrypted, the encrypted data is gone forever unless you can discover the passphrase (or you have the resources of a State actor). There is no secret backdoor for emergency access.

user535733
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