How to create admin from database

I’m doing something interesting that I don’t think is covered in the codex.

I have to move a WordPress installation from one server to the next. IN the move, I’m also upgrading the old wordpress on the old server from 2.0 to WP 2.1 on the new server.

I’ve backed up (several times, actually) the database, installed the new WP on the new server successfully – but I have to do something that’s not covered int eh codex, and I’m having difficulty with it.

I cannot log into the blog on the old server and point to the new server to change the required settings so the new server can do it’s thing (I hope you all know what I mean!) I can’t do this because it’s live and active, and if I do that, there’ll be an unwanted “burp” while I work on the new server before I can go back and change the settings on the old.

I can import the database just fine – I opened it as a text file and did a find/replace for all of the URLs and such. I have imported everything successfully, and everything shows up linked properly to the new server and all is well. *Except* for the login for the admin panel.

When the old blogger got into his old blog – well I won’t say he deleted the “admin” stuff, but I can’t find it in the database – and created several other usernames and passwords. I can’t log in – period. It says I have an invalid username when I use “admin” and an invalid password when I use one of the usernames in the database.

I’m wondering if the passwords that are showing up for the usernames are somehow encoded? I’ve even tried inserting a new row into the users table, and putting in my own username and password that way, but it still won’t accept my login – it won’t recognize the password.

Would anyone know how I can go about setting a username/password with full admin privileges through the database, instead of changing the settings in the old blog? I’d like to do this *totally* from the back end so I don’t interrupt what’s currently going on.