Deeanna here... need smart friends to help me! zorin@diananet.net
Are you referring to your login password on the machine with Zorin OS 15?
Or to the Zorin Upgrader tool?
Or... to verifying the 17.3 Pro .iso?
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the admin login password on 15.3 I set it up for automatic login years ago and now I have 17.3 and want to do a complete install but anything I try to do on it ... it wants me to authenticate the password that I don't remember.
I already have the usb drive ready but I can't get far for the password blocking me
I am a little confused.
You do not need a password to install.
You would need your 15.3 password to access Zorin OS 15 and backup your data and save personal files.
And your .iso of 17.3 has no system password until you create one during the installation process.
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It keeps telling me that I have to authenticate the password before I can upgrade or install... so I don't understand what to do.
I even tried going into Recovery mode to reset the password and even that didn't work.
The only reason to boot and access 15.3 on that machine is if you want to recover personal data stored on the OS. Do you need to do this?
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I don't need anything off of 15.3... I just want to install the 17.3 and start over.
Great, then next step is to burn the .iso to a USB stick as a bootable drive.
I prefer Ventoy for that, Zorin OS recommends BalenaEtcher, which I avoid.
I also recommend Mintstick or Popsicle.
Do you have an etcher to burn the .iso as bootable media to a USB Stick?
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I don't know what I might be doing wrong... I had the usb drive plugged in and turned pc on and I expected it to start an install process but it didn't do that... It did show the USB as a file on the desktop. So I thought I should double click it to see if it would start installing there... and that's where I start getting the message that I have to authenticate the admin password.
I have already done that with balena etcher.
From what you've said... I am wondering if I messed up the usb...?
Ok. You were right, plugging in the stick, then powering on should allow you to boot from the USB stick - but I think your BIOS is defaulting to the installed disk, instead.
When you boot, try tapping F12 to pull up the boot menu.
A bit annoying, but these manufacturers do not standardize which key accesses the Boot Menu - so if not F12, it may be F2, F8, F10 or esc.... just try each until one works...
You should see a menu that asks if you are booting the drive in the machine - or the USB stick. It won't say "Hard drive or USB stick" but list the model numbers of each.
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I did prepare it on Windows 10... but that shouldn't matter right??
That won't matter and you probably have not messed up the stick.
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OK.. I will try that tomorrow and get back to you. THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!!
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I have prepared photos of my adventure today and hope it assist you in seeing what my problem is because I just don't understand this. I optimized the photo sizes and each is in kb's .. hoping they load easy for you. I have written notes to you on some of the photos.
They are all .jpg's.
There are 18 photos total.
I couldn't get the F12 key to give me a boot menu .. even though I saw in the load process that it says F12 for boot menu.
I tried the delete key, F10 key, F2 key, ESC key, and the left shift key was the most fruitful key.
The F12 key immediately gives the blue screen with enter password in the center.
Sure would be nice to have a password!
The left shift key gives the Zorin Advanced Options page.
I typed a lot here for Aravision and posted 18 photos and now I don't see them and don't know what he will see or not see. And a lot of them had notes on them for him. Then when I came back here to check it said new users could only post 10 items and I have been a user for many years and had posted 18.
My handle before was Deeanna and before password was Dnd_F0.7*5a.
How do I get credit for not being NEW HERE??
OK, firstly, welcome back after a long time. In terms of your 15.3 Pro. So long as you are definite that there is no important data on there you could use a live usb to 'Try Zorin' and get back data that way should you need to.
In terms of the password that you set, even though you set it to autologin, you could try, but not guarantees on this, to use the password reset procedure. (I have a sneaky suspicion that you may not be able to if it has registered the password against 'root' only which is always hidden.)
To reset a forgotten password, use the advanced options and drop to the recovery menu and choose the bottom menu item of 'Drop to root shellprompt'.
When the terminal screen opens, press the Enter key to continue, and it should then show your details followed by a '#' to indicate you are now root.
To reset the password enter the following:
mount -rw -o remount /
as you know your username enter:
passwd username
Replace 'username' with your actual username and press Enter.
Then you will be asked to enter a new password twice, once done and you have pressed Enter it should come back with:
"Password successfully changed for [username]".
Now power off and then switch back on again. You should now be able to get back into your Zorin 15.3 Pro.
Once at the desktop, check for any updates or open a terminal and enter:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
If nothing happens, fine. You don't need to update. If you have a swap area, you will need to unmount it before you can delete it or just leave it alone for the new installation - you just need to make the new install to mark it as swap, even though it is already there to get it included in the new partition table.
Now I would at the same time delete/format your usb that has Balena Etcher on it, only if you still have access to the Zorin 17.3 Pro .iso!
If you still have the iso on your Windows 10 machine (and you have verified the checksum of the iso with the key provided by Zorin to ensure it matches before creating a new stick).
Now I would advise you install Rufus which runs well under Rufus - if your last Zorin 15.3 Pro used UEFi and your computer supports UEFi, then be sure when using Rufus to create the stick, you choose the UEFi method of creation and use GPT method for partitioning. If your machine does not have secure boot, then use mbr method and I personally prefer manual partitioning as follows:
-
Create an /efi/boot partition at the start of the drive of 512 Mb formatted to FAT32
-
Next create a root partition '/' of 80 Gb formatted to Ext4 FS marked as Primary.
-
Create a swap area at the end of the drive (unless it already exists) and make it the same size as the amount of physical RAM the computer that you are installing Zorin to holds.
-
Between '/' and 'swap area', whatever space is left, format to Ext4 FS and mark it as '/home'.
Finally be sure to put GRUB at the start of sda where it asks you where it should reside.
You should then be able to install Zorin 17.3 Pro and I would recommend you use the something else method, but make sure to try in live mode first (Try Zorin) to make sure everything is working correctly.
Deeanna, I would like to add a few points for clarity.
You do not need to reset a password. I can see reasons to want to...
If your login information for your Zorin Forum Deeanna account is saved on the Zorin OS 15 install, this would allow you access to it, to retrieve it.
However... It is not the only way to do so - the Administrator here can merge your current account to the old one and help you reset the password for Zorin Forum.
This establishes that F12 key is the correct key to press to choose the USB stick to boot from.
That it is not showing up tells us that either the USB Stick is not being read in the port - I have a USB port that you need to press down hard on the USB Stick for it to be read - I avoid using that port...
OR
That the .iso was not actually burned to the USB stick as a bootable media.
Let's begin at these two, since you do not need the Zorin OS 15 password in order to install Zorin OS 17.3 fresh.
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So HAPPY to hear from you and Aravisian!!! I have missed you both! Hurriane Ian destroyed my home and it has been a long road back trying to piece everything back together again but Thank God... I am getting very close now to feeling at home in my own home again.
Thank You for all your input... I will do my very best and I appreciate it and you GREATLY!!!
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