[NCLUG] root/superuser pwd question

[Mark McCulley]

I am working on converting my old Toshiba laptop to a Linux box, and
installed a dual-boot of Debian (Hardy Heron).  It's telling me, on booting
up Linux, that there are updates, and when I try to install them, I get a
message that says
"E:dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to
correct the problem."

When I open a terminal window and enter that string, it says I need
super-user rights.  However, I don't recall the dual-boot install asking me
to create a root user/password, and I don't have a record of the pwd.
(Maybe I did but was interrupted at a crucial point...)  Have tried logging
in as root with a few tries at a pwd but to no avail.

Is there a way to recover the pwd?
Or can I re-install over the original installation (only did it last week,
so not a lot of changes since then) and start over?

Can't find anything online about this question -- was hoping somebody had
gone through this pain before.  Thanks!
a newbie