Somehow Deleted All Accounts

[Tununias]

This is probably in the wrong section, but I don't really know where it goes.

I have not idea how this happened. I had an account that I didn't need anymore so I used system settings to delete it. Somehow, instead both that account and my administrator account were deleted even though that's not supposed to be possible.(I think it happend when because I clicked delete twice after I thought it didn't work the first time.)

I noticed it when I saw that my background was missing and I couldn't open any other programs. Also the menu and the upper right corner didn't show anything. I manually restarted the computer and now I have no accounts. The login just tells me to enter my username and password. That doesn't work and says my username and password are incorrect. Is there any way to retreive my account or my files, or am I screwed? (I told it to delete the files from the account I was trying to delete).


Also I think this is a glitch, although I don't think there's much left(if the files are competely gone) to report with. I did have some files that would be nice if I could get back, but it won't be the end of the world if I can't get them back.

I will do a reinstall at the end of Monday (March 11, 2013 10:00 pm EST) if I don't get any replies. It's nothing personal, I just really don't have much time to wait. Anyway, thank you in advance to anyone who tries to help me. And sorry if this isn't very organized, this all just happened and I'm not thinking clearly.

[Tununias]

I do have the guest login available, but I don't have any permission and can't see if my personal files are still there. The programs I have installed are still there. Also, if Its possible to make a new administrator account without reinstalling, please let me know. I have a lot of programs and stuff that would take a while for me to track down and install.

[kuifje09]

If you are able to log in as root, then you can see, if you deleted per accident all the users, eventually with or without their homes.
If the homes and content are there, then you might be able to rebuild the userlist.
When also the content of the homes is lost, then your system can be considdered empty.
Or, do you mean to say that also the whole /etc/passwd is empty ?

[Tununias]

/etc/passwd isn't empty. There's about 30 lines of text in there. How would I log into the root acount?

[kuifje09]

Well, If you dont have a root passwd or forgot, you have to boot into singleuser mode.

Then you are root , and can set a passwd of choice. choose one good and dont forget.

Ubuntu has a boot entry when you startup the computer, usualy the second line, or the one below the default.
Maintenance mode I gues.
But when in maintenance mode you also can check /home for its content.

[Frogs Hair]

There is a way to add a user from the terminal but the guest account won't save changes and has limited function for security reasons . https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal

To access tty you need to login and enter a password so it is a catch 22 . I did see some methods for file recovery but they were dated .

[Tununias]

The second option is Advanced Options which has several versions of the kernel and a Recovery Mode for each kernel. In recovery mode, it has a window that says

Recovery Menu (filesystem state: Read-Only)
resume_____ Resume normal boot
clean_____ Try to make free space
dpkg_____ Repair broken packages
failsafex_____ Run in failsafe graphic mode
fsck_____ Check all file systems
grub_____ update grub boot loader
network_____ Enable Networking
root_____ Drop to root shell prompt
system-summery_____ System summery
<OK>

Should I select root, fsck, or is this not the right place?
I added the "_____" because I it got rid of all my spaces.

[kuifje09]

Okay when to recreate the accounts, thats easy. But when the content of the homes is lost is does not make any sense.
So first chek if there is something worth to save in the home, then recreate the passwd entries.
Any uid created above the id==1000 is displayed in the grafical usermanager.
After creation you can change the homepath and id's by hand if needed.

But also, when you lost your users, you dont need to reinstall. users are just users, not a whole system.

When you are able to login as root, then you could just create one user in the grafical manager, give him admin rights and you can do the rest as usual.
The guest account you do'nt need, I think it was better if it wasn't there. ( I deleted it )

[lisati]

I added the "_____" because I it got rid of all my spaces.

*** aside begins ***
Although it might seem a little bit counter-intuitive at first, using [code] and [/code] instead of [quote] and [/quote] can sometimes be useful if you want to preserve the formatting of something you are quoting.
*** aside ends ***

[kuifje09]

Oops we missed each other, I never saw that menu, must be special to 12.XX.
So that is not funny.

Choose for failsafex, then you are grafical, that is always helpfull.

Update: if failsafx is not a root environment, then choose for rootshell.
But then you realy need to know what to do. if not, things are easily broken.