nicols
Level 1 (4 points)
Mac OS X

Q: User account missing - can only log in as guest

Hi

major problem with my mabook pro 2011 running EL Capitan

 

All was well yesterday but today, I woke it up from sleep and plugged in a usb hard disk. the mac rebooted of its own accord and my user account is no longer present, just a guest account. I've run the built in disk utility from inside the guest and account and from the recovery boot screen - in both cases it when through the processes but gave no serious errors. In the guest account I can't see any other user accounts but I cant create a new user account because it asks for admin name / password and my old details aren't recognised? Any ideas on what I should do next?

Posted on Sep 7, 2016 4:27 AM

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nicols

Q: User account missing - can only log in as guest

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  • by nicols,

    nicols nicols Sep 7, 2016 4:32 AM in response to nicols
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 4:32 AM in response to nicols

    ps - tried booting in safe mode (by pressing shift key during startup) but again, just guest. I'm pretty sure I DIDN'T have the harddisk encryption turned on before this happened. Also, its a dual partition bootcamp with windows 10 installed.

  • by nicols,

    nicols nicols Sep 7, 2016 5:29 AM in response to nicols
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 5:29 AM in response to nicols

    I have successfully found and reset the password for the System Administrator and logged in - whilst all my files and folders are still there, the account is simply gone - unlisted. If I were to recreate my old account under the same name what would happen? Would all my old account folders and setting get wiped or would this new account with the same name just use all my old settings etc? I'm loath to try it in case I really do just lose everything!

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Sep 7, 2016 5:08 PM in response to nicols
    Level 8 (49,645 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 5:08 PM in response to nicols

    Back it up and try adding your old short user name. If it sees a home folder, it should ask if you want to use that.

    If it says the account already exists, then you need to determine why it doesn't show up.

     

    If something goes wrong, restore from the backup.