Sometimes you may inherit a MySQL databse server and have no credentials to access anything. None of the default accounts work. Your only option is to reset the root user account password. This is very easy to do.
1. Open up Windows Task Manager and stop the mysqld.exe (MySQL daemon) process.
2. Open up Computer Management > Services > and stop the MySQL service if it isn’t already stopped.
3. Open up a command prompt and go to your MySQL bin folder, for example:
C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1\bin
then type in:
mysqld.exe –skip-grant-tables
this will restart the MySQL daemon process.
4. Now type in:
mysql.exe -u root
and it should log you right in as the root user without having to specify a password.
5. Now you need to reset the password. Type:
UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD(‘MyNewPassword’) WHERE User=’root’;
You can change the password to whatever you want. I have set it to “MyNewPassword” above.
6. Now type:
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
and you’re done! Try logging in using your new credentials and it should work just fine. Don’t forget to verify that your MySQL service has been restarted.
