Strange glitch involving user accounts on my machine...

Ok, this all started yesterday, I don't know if this is just some weird glitch or if it some sort of function I'm not aware of, that was suddenly activated. There is 2 user accounts on this computer, M(which is myself) and A(my mother)).My father was in my account and was trying to customize it for himself, since I no longer use this ibook. But instead of changing the name in the user settings, he clicks on HD and RENAMES the 'M' tab, as 'rudy'.
I didn't think much of it, but when he updated and restarted the computer, when he logged back into the 'M' account, EVERYTHING was reset to the default settings, as if its never been used before. All bookmarks are gone, itunes is blank, everything was seemingly gone as if another account had just been created from scratch.
It took me a while to notice that when I click on HD there is now 3 accounts now(eventhough when i log in, there is only 2). in the users tab there is a folder for 'M', 'A' and 'rudy' with 'M' being the one that is still displayed as the little home icon.
The weird thing is that when I click on the 'rudy' folder, all his original files, photos and music is all there. I can't locate any of these files in spotlight or anything, but the files are clearly IN this rudy folder and open properly, whilst the 'M' account is completely empty of any photos or music.
Its kind of like one account became two accounts, with all the information being confined to its own folder for whatever reason..
I haven't messed with anything yet, but I'm wondering if this can be fixed? is it possible to get back my original files and settings in this main account? I can easily back everything up and start anew, but there's really a lot of stuff i'd have to sort through, and i'd like to avoid that if possible.
Message was edited by: mlarque
Message was edited by: mlarque

This sounds to me like the 'Rudy' directory is your original 'M' directory. I'm guessing that when you logged on OSX requires a user's home directory to carry the same name as the account it relates to; it couldn't find the 'M' directory so it created a blank one.
I would expect that if you rename the new "M" directory to "M_Blank" or similar, then rename "Rudy" to "M". Log-out and back in again, all will be as before.
Before you do this I would like someone to confirm that the problem doesn't go any deeper. However, that's what I would do, then change the user account name in the correct way using account management.

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