Missing Account Name

Question

After shutting my computer down and restarting it about a half an hour later, my I realized my User name was no longer listed. It's as if it dissappered. I tried booting from the installtion CD in hopes i could maybe reset my password but the only account that it says is avaliable is the "root" account. I tried to reset this password in hopes to log onto that, but it did not work. Please help

Answer 1

don't panic, your account is not really gone. its directory service entry is corrupted but all your user data is intact. do the following. from root open terminal and type (copy and paste please).
rm /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/short-user-name.plist
Instead of short-user-name put in the above the short name of the disappeared user. It's the same as the name of that user's home directory in /Users folder. Please make sure you copy the command EXACTLY as given. it's very important. we don't want to delete the wrong thing here.
Press enter in terminal.
Restart, log in as root and try creating the account with that short user name from system preferences->accounts. it will say that a home directory by that name already exists and ask if you want to use it. say "yes".
Your account will be recreated and you'll be able to log in.