Problem on creating root password

Hi folks,

CentOS 4.4 amd64

I have been stuck on creating root password;

# mysqladmin -u root password yourrootsqlpassword[code]
Access denied for user ‘root’@'localhost’ (using password: NO)
[/code]

# su -
did not help.

Pls advise how to locate mysql’s hostname.pid file?

Then to run;
# kill `cat /mysql-data-directory/host_name.pid`
mysqld_safe –skip-grant-tables &
mysqladmin -u root flush-privileges password “newpassword”

OR is there any other way to fix this problem.  TIA


B.R.
satimis