I believe your friend is entering sysinstall to reach the "you should have a root" password prompt, however, he isn't and simply exits from sysinstall. sysinstall will NEVER overwrite anything unless YOU tell it to.
So, what you need to do is login as root then type passwd and press enter. Now type the new ROOT password and hit enter, it will ask you twice for confirmation. Assuming your friend is doing what I think he is (i.e., reinstalling a lot of /usr stuff), type adduser and press enter, follow the prompts...make sure to make the login group: wheel if you want to enable su to root witht that user.
Regards,
Brodey
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