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I am facing difficulty in resetting a lost admin password for Ubuntu 20.04.3 According to various online resources, the recommended method is to access the GRUB menu, enter recovery mode, and reset the password from there. However, when I press Esc during the boot-up process, instead of displaying the GRUB menu, a series of commands start running and eventually I end up on the home screen.

Is there an alternative method or a workaround to access the GRUB menu in this situation? I really need to reset the admin password, and any help or suggestions would be highly appreciated.

photo of a screen showing verbose boot

Nmath
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user1695860
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    Does this answer your question? How do I boot into a root shell? See this answer. If you have legacy BIOS you need to hold shift. Of course none of these methods will work if your BIOS is not booting your Ubuntu partition. If the problem is with BIOS boot priority, review the documentation for your motherboard for the procedure on your particular hardware. – Nmath May 14 '23 at 05:23
  • Isn't it supposed to be the "Shift" key instead ... Plus there is always the forceful way like with most OSs if you forcefully interrupt the boot process by rebooting early ( Ctrl+Alt+Delete ) in the boot process, it will show the GRUB menu on the next boot. – Raffa May 14 '23 at 05:27
  • Your details imply you've not applied security fixes/upgrades in a very long time if you're using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. A fully upgraded system will report as 20.04.6 with you more than 12 months behind on security fixes. Also note the dates are ISO release dates, with installed systems upgrading in the week+ before ISO release date. Are you using Ubuntu? (Ubuntu based systems will report as what they were based on & may not upgrade) – guiverc May 14 '23 at 05:27
  • I've tried with Shift key (pressed multiple times, hold the key) but nothing happens in that case. – user1695860 May 14 '23 at 09:51
  • In this case, follow instructions here https://askubuntu.com/a/1238393 and you will be able to change your password after the chroot step. – Raffa May 20 '23 at 09:49

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