My account is missing from the the login screen and the users and groups system preferences. How do I recover?

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unisoft01 Author

Level 1

11 points

My account is missing from the the login screen and the users and groups system preferences. How do I recover?

My account is missing from the the login screen and the users and groups system preferences.

Sequence of events:

1. From my desktop, chose the "Login Window..." option from the user menu.

2. Later that day, attempted to login to my account but the password was rejected.

3. Checked to ensure that caps lock was off and tried password two more times but it was rejected.

4. Choose the "Restart" option from the login screen.

5. Was prompted to enter the admin password, since I was still logged-on to my account.

6. Admin password was accepted and my iMac was restarted.

7. When the login screen was displayed my account was no longer displayed.

8. Logged-in as admin and went to the users & groups preferences. My account was not displayed there either.

9. Checked the users folder on the iMac hard drive. All of my folders appear to be intact.

How do I recover?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Nov 22, 2015 12:27 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 22, 2015 2:55 PM in response to unisoft01

Have you tried to recreate the account with the same name and password?

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Answer 2

unisoft01 Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 22, 2015 5:13 PM in response to Linc Davis

No, I have not tried to recreate the account.

Since everything in my user directory appears to be intact, I did not want to risk losing any of my data, preferences etc.

Would recreating the account with the same name and password have any effect on my existing user directory?

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Answer 3

Dr.Mac.

Level 3

650 points

Nov 22, 2015 5:26 PM in response to unisoft01

Have you turned on FileVault ? If you have, you can enable your account by doing the following:

Open System Preferences
Click on Privacy & Security.
Click on the FileVault tab.

There should be an Enable users... button showing in the FileVault preference pane.

Click it and you should be given the opportunity to enable the account by providing the account's password.

On restart, the missing account should now appear at the login screen.

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Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 22, 2015 5:41 PM in response to unisoft01

First, your problem has nothing to do with FileVault.

I did not want to risk losing any of my data

There is no risk of that, as long as you have backups. If you don't have backups, it's not safe to do anything at all.

When you recreate the account, you may be prompted to keep or remove the existing home folder. Choose to keep it.

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Answer 5

unisoft01 Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 24, 2015 4:28 PM in response to Linc Davis

Yes, after did a backup of my existing home folder, I was able to recreate the account with the same name and password and was prompted to use my existing home folder, which I did. All of my data, preferences, etc. appear to be intact and everything is working properly.

Thank you very much for your help Linc.

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