Recover MySQL root Password

You can recover MySQL database server's root password with the following five steps.

1. Stop the MySQL server process: $ /etc/init.d/mysql stop
2. Start the MySQL (mysqld) server/daemon process with the --skip-grant-tables option so that it will not prompt for password: $ mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
3. Connect to mysql server as the root user: $ mysql -u root
4. Setup new mysql root account password and quit: mysql> use mysql;
mysql> update user set password=PASSWORD("NEW-ROOT-PASSWORD") where User='root';
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> quit
5. Restart the MySQL server: $ /etc/init.d/mysql stop