The way Joomla 1.5 stores passwords into the database (one-way "salted" MD5 hash) is not possible to recover a lost or forgotten password, what you can do is reset the user password to a new one by editing the password field in the database. This article will show you how to do just that from PHPMyAdmin (located on the cpanel) or any other MySql browsing utility you may be using.

you will be using the code "21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3" which will make your password "admin"

Directions

1. Open your phpMyAdmin or any other MySQL utility browser.

2. Open the database that belongs to the Joomla installation and select the table, jos_users. (Change default table prefix, 'jos_' to your table prefix if it is different.)

3. Select the record (or table row) for your super administrator account (The first admin account, created by default, has an id of 62).

4. Copy and paste " 21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3 " into the password field. Warning: just the characters inside the quotes, leave the quotes out.

5. Save the changes.

6. Point your browser to your site and log as the administrator using the password "admin".

7. Once logged into your Joomla site you should change the password again to one that only you know.