Using ASP with Microsoft MySQL
To start with, get to a command prompt and CD to the directory that holds the main MySQL information. There should be a my.ini file in there with all your initial settings. The MySQL Service should also be running.
Now type in
MySQL -u root -p
The system will prompt you for your root password. Type it in!
You should now have a mysql> prompt. Note that you didn't "run the database" with the above command. All you did was run a CLIENT to connect to that database. Think of it like a website. When you open a browser, you aren't starting the website up. The website is already there, running. You are just connecting to it to look at it.
Some common commands to type here are:
show tables
quit
To initialize your root password:
mysqladmin -u root password NEWPASSWORD
To change your root password:
mysqladmin -u root -p oldpassword newpass
ASP Server Setup Information