Speaking of root passwords, I once got a call from Microsoft:
MS: "Hey, Sean, we heard you might know how to break into Windows 2000 machines without the password."
Me: "Umm..."
MS: "We lost the administrator password to some of our machines. If you can change it for us, we won't ask how."
Me: "I'll see what I can do."
When Microsoft locked themselves out of their own operating system, they called the Linux guy to get them back in. (I used SystemRescueCD.)
@seanl (the last time I used that trick was resetting the password on a VM that had sat unused for long enough to forget what i used)