Missing user account in System Preferences (visible in /Users)

@leroydouglas It seems that @cjroe doesn't have a recent backup, and likely wants to avoid using Time Machine as (unlike Windows File Restore), Time Machine both overwrites non-vaulted user files as well as creates an unbootable drive.

@cjroe Hey bro, it's me. If you're receiving a basic I/O error on a disk, much like this forum post: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7837272 . You may have a corrupt hard drive, I'm not a professional expert but it may be a bad sector / block that is causing an I/O, i.e., read/write failure. To my knowledge, this means that a certain sector of the hard drive has failed or become corrupt and either a software lock has kicked in disabling it from copying the data over or otherwise.

Under certain conditions, there may be a fix for you, similar to this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6049264 . Personally, I cannot advise any software fixes but what may work is,

• Purchase a new, compatible SSD for your system and an extra SATA cable
• Install it as a functioning boot drive
• Install software that copies, bit for bit, information from compromised / invalidated files (like Teracopy or Fastcopy https://www.codesector.com/teracopy / https://fastcopy.jp/en/) And ensure that it is compatible with your system
• The success of this will hinge on this step: the laptop MUST have an additional SATA slot accessible by the motherboard or otherwise, (SATA to Lightning is a possible solution), install your corrupt hard drive and boot into your clean install on the new hard drive
• Run file copy software and/or manually copy over all data you want to keep
• Discard old hard drive

Hope this helps! This is a classic last-ditch troubleshooting problem for failing hard drives. You may not be able to recover all corrupt data. Make sure to properly install a new, clean boot drive. Should have no problems copying over information if you can run both hard drives.

Can anyone help me or should I just give up on Apple?

I would submit to you that instead of trying to do all the forensics, back tracking and trouble shooting in undoing all the monkeying around that has already taken place—far more simple to restore your mac from Time Machine or other back— to before the problem showed itself.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981

If you did not have an adequate and redundant backup plan in place—I would submit to you that you can blame yourself as well.

If you google "3-2-1 backup strategy" for more information.

Whether it be software or a hardware, it is a fact of the computer world there will be failures. Take some responsibility, and please do yourself a big favor before you experience your next failure.

How to create a boot clone: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-10081

This is a user to user technical support forum—so if you want to address Apple, please follow through

Apple Feedback http://www.apple.com/feedback

also

With your same Apple ID you can sign up for a free Developers Account and start a conversation with Apple engineers

Bug Reporter https://bugreport.apple.com/

also

https://www.apple.com/legal/

What user name are you expecting to see that is not listed?

I see your created users:

admin

badapple

hiddenuser

test3

Any ideas on that hiddenuser folder? Seems suspicious?

Lets see the output:

defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow