How do I fix a corrupted admin account? I get an error when I attempt to log in.

Question

There was a shut down due to a power failure. When the mac started again, it did not show my Home folder, which is on an external drive. The desktop was not correct and everything looks sort of generic, rather than reflecting my preferences.
I use the Advanced Options in the user accounts to reset my home folder, although it seemed to show the correct location for it. When I changed it, the locations was shown as externaldisc1 rather than externaldisk, which I thought was the correct name (not the real names). I used disk utility to check name of the external disk and it should the volume as externadisk1, so I went ahead and made the change.
Now I cannot login. I get an message that says Cannot log in at this time because an error occurred.
I have two drives that I can use as a startup. The internal drive is running 10.9. This is the one that has the problem. I can still login if I startup from the external drive, which is running 10.8, as can be seen below, and is the disk on which the Home Folder is located.

Answer 1

Well, if it were me, I'd try a couple of other things first:
- Force a reset of the admin password
As before, boot into Recovery HD
From the menu, choose Utilities, Terminal
Type "resetpassword" (without the quotes) and hit enter
Select the Macintosh HD volume
Select your account from the list and give it a new password, click Save
Restart normally and test
- Reset your Home directory permissions
Do steps 1-5 above, choosing yet another password
Also click "Reset"
Restart normally and test
I Believe in trying things that to from the least potential harm to the greatest   if these don't work, please reply back.
My next choice would be to do a restore from time machine from a point before you had this trouble (you do have backups?) and, in the absence of advice from more experienced community members, you could try the linked article, bearing in mind that a full erase and reinstall might be needed.