php/mySQL on XAMPP: password for phpMyAdmin and mysql_connect different?
if you open localhost/phpmyadmin you will find a tab called "User accounts". There you can define all your users that can access the mysql database, set their rights and even limit from where they can connect.
You need to change the password directly in the database because at mysql the users and their profiles are saved in the database.
So there are several ways. At phpMyAdmin you simple go to user admin, choose root and change the password.