need to recover slapd password and upgrade openldap

My admin openLDAP 2.2 password became corrupt in the last week and I cannot log in as admin. I was hoping there was an easy recovery such as lunix has shutting down slapd, removing the hashed password, bringing it back up and resetting the blank password using slappasswd. I can't take a chance unless I know for sure. I have searched Google and read the admin manual. I inherited a system using open ldap server on an old redhat, and the slapd password was corrupted (or locked out by another admin????). this is openldap 2.2 on an old redhat box. I cannot risk having a group of users locked out for more than an hour because LDAP is down. What I need to do today is recover (reset) the slapd password so I can log into the database. I found some instructions which seem simple risky and no backout strategy. Simply running http://techiezone.rottigni.net/2011/12/change-root-dn-password-on-openldap/ After recovery of root. I was planning on 1. shutting down server, making a P2V copy for a hypervisor, then creating another ldap master and slave servers on redhat6 with openldap2.4 once I have this password issue resolved. Having the LDAP on two separate hyper visors (with local disks) to avoid the storage/authentication chicken/egg Is there a better upgrade plan I have the log files, is there a way to backout to last week without the admin password (which became corrupt last week).