LOGIN AND PASSWORD NOT RECOGNIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok guys so any help on this situation would be greatly appreciated. So here is the back story so far.

So I recently took over administration of a website for a new client and their previous web designer used Joomla 1.5 to create their site. He did not leave behind the password for the back end administrative control panel. I have access to the hosting account and to their MySQL/phpmyadmin so I'm able to change information in the jos. files. I have already went through the following steps.

1. Reset the password in the jos.users file.
2. Made sure "block" was on 0 and "access" were on 1
3. Made sure various files had correct numbers for the Super Admin profile

I've tried soooo many things and NOTHING can get me access to the admin control panel. Is this installation of Joomla corrupted?! Could it be that the Super Admin user has been corrupted and I should make a second Super Admin2 user?! I have been on various forums and it looks like a TON of people have this issue. If anyone can help me get into this installation I would be eternally grateful. I'm even willing to pay someone to troubleshoot over the phone with me.

Oh by the way if anyone wants to contact me directly you can use my ichat instant messenger name which is Camryec3 or send me an email at rsands1@mac.com. Thanks again guys for all the help!!!