Geeky root password humor (I guess)

Here I sit in front of my MDK9.1 box, I had abandoned it for a short while to play around with file development under windows, and now guess what? I forgot my root password, and I know that it uses a pretty hefty encryption (Some variant of DES I believe.) So I know that I wont be able to restore it that way, and guessing wont work either, since I use very complex passwords (usually ay least 15 characters, comprising letters(upper and lower) and numbers). So what know? Well, I could reinstall the whole OS, but that would be wasted hours and a lot of docs down the tube. Again I am faced with an inevitable situation with only one obvious solution, I know in old copies of NT 4.0 it was possible to reset the security settings, (I used NT4.0 extensively) with just the boot disk, is there a way to do this is MDK? I will probably play around with it hoping and praying that by some glimmer of luck I will remember my root password or perhaps find a setting on the boot CD that allows me to reset it.

Only one good thing can be said here; that linux can be a tough nut to crack. If you guys have any suggestions I would forever be in your debt.

I am sorry, it is not decision, just a few suggestion:
1) create one more user account with a root priviliges (add it in sudoers).
2) configure your .rhosts file: it allows rlogin from another mashine.
3) write the password under keyboard (joke )

I do not know other way to restore the password, if you forgot it, unfortunately. Try boot from CD, but I am not sure, it helps.

I've never tried it before, but you may be able to boot from the cdrom, run the setup program and only configure the accounts, while not reinstalling any packages/formatting any partitions.

This is a Linux box right?
As with all *nix, you should be able to log in via single user mode from the console -- does not require password.

Change the password, reboot.
Done.

boot up a rescue disk or similar (eg knoppix or damn small inux) and fix your /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files. I'm not sure where you'd get prewritten ones from, though. You can't have mine (sorry). Do you have another box around that you can put linux on temporarily and then borrow the /etc/passwd and the /etc/shadow files from?

One more thing, when your finished that, make sure to go in as root and chmod the /etc/shadow file to 640.

These suggestion may work, but you could always take this opportunity to install a newer version of Mandrake or another Linux OS. Just a thought.