[NTLUG:Discuss] recovering root password - Opensuse 10.3/11.0

[Richard]

In the past I have recovered root access by booting up with an 
installation or rescue disk, mounting the root partition and editing the 
shadow file to remove the encrypted password.  I've done that on an 
opensuse box but the system still won't let me login as root.

Is there something else that is preventing a login?  I thought that PAM 
might be enforcing a password restriction or something so I generated 
and added a password hash for root.  The login still didn't work.

There is still the installation media to try (chroot /mnt/point ; 
passswd)  but I'm curious as to why this didn't work.

-- 
Richard