Access Ubuntu Wubi installation files (root.disk)

Hi,

It has been a busy start to the semester, and I'd not really gotten time to blog. But here I am, after doing something stupid again.

Today I commented out my 'root' password entry in the /etc/passwd file. Then I could neither do "sudo" nor my Ubuntu Jaunty boots up. It just freezes at login. The recovery console couldn't get me a root console either, because it cannot find any user named 'root'.

Ah, my only resort was Ubuntu Live CD - got it from my roommate after quite some search. Here is what I did:
1. Boot the system with Live CD (I used Hardy 8.04). I think you can use any Live CD for that sake (just that the later commands might differ).
2. Mounted my WUBI Ubuntu's host drive (D:\ in my case) by clicking Places->SecDrive, where SecDrive was the volume label of my D:\
As we know, this gets mounted in /media/SecDrive in Ubuntu.
3. Opened a terminal on the Live Ubuntu's desktop. Then:
sudo mkdir vdisk
sudo mount -o loop /media/SecDrive/ubuntu/disks/root.disk vdisk
4. Then "sudo -i" to open a root prompt
5. Finally "vi /home/ubuntu/Desktop/vdisk/etc/passwd" and uncommented the "root" password (where 'ubuntu' was the name of the Live CD default user)

Poof... It worked finally... Sometimes I wonder how stupid can I get....

Until we meet again,
-Srini-