Recovering my O2 root and personal passwords

[voxelman]

Long story short: My SGI O2 R5000 workstation has set idle for some 30 years. Recently while doing a long overdue cleanup of our garage, I came across about 100 DAT data tapes that represent the bulk of my work for Vital Images an early SGI software development partner. The bulk of the data is 3D volumetric data that I would like to recover and play with using more modern 3D visualization tools running on modern hardware. However, my memory at 75 is a little short on a couple of important details i.e. the root and my personal passwords. I've reached out to former colleagues that might remember the standard root password that we used but no luck so far.

I’ve been all over the internet with Google and found many references to methods for removing passwords on the O2 but so far, I get errors when I use the commands suggested. I’m hoping that maybe someone on this forum will have a definitive guide for doing this.

Note that I have followed the O2™ Workstation Hardware Reference Guide instructions, Chapter 4 – Troubleshooting, Disabling the System Maintenance Password, pages 104-108 for disabling the PROM password. It seems to differ from many of the instructions suggesting that the jumper is to be removed. My understanding from the manual instructions is that a jumper is removed from a storage location on the motherboard and placed on a pair of pins that are near the memory sockets. If anyone knows differently please enlighten me.

Another issue is that I will have to connect a third-party DAT drive. I’ve picked up a couple of used ones but that is a topic for the Hardware Forum.

 

[stormy]

The PROM password is nothing to do with IRIX's root password. You need to follow some instructions like this:

Obsolete : Resetting the root-password of IRIX

Majix Obsolete Stuff

software.majix.org

Then this post elaborates further:

Reset Root Password on IRIX

groups.google.com

 

[voxelman]

The PROM password is nothing to do with IRIX's root password. You need to follow some instructions like this:

Obsolete : Resetting the root-password of IRIX

Majix Obsolete Stuff

software.majix.org

Then this post elaborates further:

Reset Root Password on IRIX

groups.google.com

Thank you for the quick reply. OK, I have the IRIX 6.5 Install Tools disk and I got into miniroot. Unfortunately not all of the links referenced in the links you provided are still in existance. When I give the command "vi /root/etc/passwd" it says that it is going to create a new file /root/etc/passwd. I don't want to do that. It may be that I also need to provide the literal drive as a part of the path. It also seems to have an issue with the console. I should have taken pictures of the screens so that I could explain this more clearly. Also, I'm going to have to learn how to use vi. I've only ever used something like nano.

The method of moving to another SGI workstation to edit the boot drive suggests another approach. I have a spare drive that I could use to perform a clean IRIX installation that I would have passwords for. Then I could mount that drive as the boot drive and edit the /root/etc/passwd file on the other drive. That seems to me to be the equivalent of moving to another SGI workstation.

 

[stormy]

I think the reason you're getting 'create new file' for '/root/etc/passwd' is because, I *think* /root/ is incorrect. Perhaps they specify /root/ in the instructions assuming people will understand that they need to do the root directory, which is usually simply '/' ?, ie; you probably should be editing '/etc/passwd'

I could be wrong though. I've never done a miniroot before so it'd be nice if anyone else could chime in.