Versione italiana: Recuperare la password dimenticata sull’Eee PC (Xandros)
Have you lost your Asus Eee PC password, after the activation of the password request? If so, this situation should be familiar to you:

Password persa sull'Eee PC?
Sorry for the screenshot language, but I own an Italian Eee PC :(
… and sorry for my poor English, too!

Don’t worry: you can reset the password, setting a new one without resetting your Eee PC with the built-in “Restore Factory Settings“… and without losing your precious data! ;)

Index
  1. Removing the login password request
    1. Entering boot loader (Grub) of the Eee PC
    2. Booting Single User Mode
    3. Removing the configuration file with BusyBox
  2. Resetting the old password and setting a new one

Removing the login password request

To remove the password request (in order to be able to do the login again) you have to delete a configuration file… so, you’ll need to access the file system. You can do this entering the single user mode.

Entering boot loader (Grub) of the Eee PC

Turn on your Eee PC; as soon as the first screen appears (the one with the “Press F2 to run setup” request)…

Schermata di boot dell'Asus Eee PC

… press and keep pressed the F9 key, until the Grub main screen will appear. Now, you have 3 options:

  1. Normal Boot;
  2. Perform Disk Scan;
  3. Restore Factory Setting.

Grub Eee PC - schermata principale

Booting Single User Mode

Select (using the arrow keys) Perform Disk Scan and press the “e” key, to edit the line. Now select the second line (the one that begins with “kernel”), and press “e” again.

Modificare Perform disk scan

The cursor will blink at the end of the line. As the article How to Create a Rescue Mode for an Asus Eee PC says, to enter the single user mode you have to replace the string XANDROSSCAN=y with XANDROSBOOTDEBUG=y

inserire XANDROSBOOTDEBUG

Press enter, then press the “b” key to boot single user mode.

Removing the configuration file with BusyBox

Now you’ll enter BusyBox, a small Linux-based system, with an ash shell. With this shell, you’ll delete the configuration file /home/user/.AsusLauncher/requireLogin: this way, you’ll remove the login password request!

Execute the following commands:

  1. for the Eee PC 701 or Eee PC 904 HD:
    1. mount /dev/sda2 /mnt-user/
    2. cd /mnt-user/home/user/
    3. rm .AsusLauncher/requireLogin
    4. exit
  2. for the Eee PC 900:
    1. mknod /dev/sdb b 8 16
    2. mknod /dev/sdb1 b 8 17
    3. mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt-user/
    4. rm /mnt-user/user/.AsusLauncher/requireLogin
    5. exit

Rimuovere la Richiesta password dell'Eee PC
(click on the photo to zoom it, to be able to check the commands)

Press return to reboot and to enter your Eee PC without the login request! ;)

Resetting the old password and setting a new one

Now you’re able to read and edit your files, but you can’t administrate your Eee PC: you have to set a new password.

Open the terminal (with CTRL+ALT+T). To set a new user password type:

sudo passwd user

Press enter and type the new password.

Do the same for the root password, typing

sudo passwd

As promised, you’re playing again with your Eee PC without a data loss! :D