Netinfo corrupted but will my accounts still be there after fixing?

Question

Appears my Netinfo database may be corrupt. For the last month or so, I've been encountering this frustrating situation where my Mac seems to forget the passwords for all of the admin accounts. I cannot log in with any (but curiously can log in to my non-admin accounts.) If I boot off the install CD I can reset my password and suddenly everything is back to normal... for a while. Eventually, at some seemingly random point, the admin accounts get locked out again (this includes root too!)
After searching, I found this document that describes what I need to do, but it doesn't tell me if anything will happen to the accounts on the machine.
I can't use the netinfo db backup (as it's probably corrupted too) so I'll have to rename/delete the current db and let the OS recreate it. Does that wipe out the accounts? I've read reports about this elsewhere that seem to indicate that the accounts will disappear, but if that's the case, how do I get them back?
There's some critical stuff on the machine. I'd like to fix it but I can't lose the accounts on it.

Answer 1

Curious that you have to recreate the accounts in the correct order. Why is that?
The numeric UID property determines which accounts can access which files. This property is sequentially assigned to new accounts, and starts with 501.
I don't actually recall the order that the accounts were created, but if you can post an explanation of how to deal with that, I would appreciate it.
From Single User mode, run the following command: 'ls -ln /Users/' without the quote marks; both instances of l are lowercase Ls. It will produce output that looks like:
drwxr-xr-x 2 501 99 68 Feb 15 2006 Trash
For each line of the results other than Shared, find the number that corresponds to the blue text and subtract 500 from it; this will be the position in the sequence in which that account needs to be created.
I'm thinking I should just create a temporary backup of the home folder for that account, delete the netinfo database and then try logging into that account again. If it succeeds then I just need to re-create the other accounts which would literally be a matter of minutes to do. Does that sound like a good way to do this or would there be some problem with that?
That account needs to have been the first created for that to work properly. If it isn't, you will still be able to backup the folder, but you may experience issues logging into and using that account.
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