Somehow Deleted All Accounts

[Tununias]

I chose failsafex and it said:

Continuing will remount your / filesystem in readwrite mode and mount any other filesystem defined in /etc/fsta6.
<Yes> <No>

I selected yes and a terminal displayed

fsck from util-linux 2.20.1
/dev/sda6: clean, 459150/7536640 files, 5744013/30129408 blocks

Then it just shows a blinking "_" shaped cursor on the line below it.
Nothing else happens.

[kuifje09]

This is diasappointing, I never used to do this, it is new to me also. But after the check it should continue somehow.
Just a blinking cursor is not good.
If nothing else will heppen in a little time, just reboot and try the same again.
You should/must end up with a grafical environment.

[Tununias]

I tried it several times, but it still did the same thing. I tried the root option and was able to view my old account's home directory. All that was in was a file called Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop and a README.txt file. Does that mean all my files have been erased?

[Tununias]

If there's no way to recover my account files, I'd be happy with just setting up a new administrator account. I had made a flashdrive backup a few months back and it's only slightly outdated. A lot of my programming projects have the source files uploaded on my college's website. The only thing I think I would lose is about 3 gigs of family photos which I think my sister has a copy on her computer.

[kuifje09]

I am afraid you accidently erased all use user id's and their contend.
So that is bad luck as it can be.

But... You don't need to reinstall ubuntu now.

Just add a line to the end of the /etc/passwd and the /etc/shadow.
Add the userid at the end of the line in the /etc/group file and you might be able to log in again to the grafical env you like.
And start over again, an create all the users you had before.

To /etc/passwd :
user1:x:1001:1001:User1,,,,:/home/user1:/bin/bash

to /etc/shadow :
user1:*:15752:0:99999:7:::

add user1 after adm in the /etc/group.
adm:x:4:user,user,user.....,user1

create a passwd for the user

passwd user1
set and repeat the passwd

Create a /home for that user

mkdir /home/user1
chown user1 /home/user1

I hope not forgot something, but you may be able to log in with user1

Thos silly smilies does not belog there... fixed.

Extra update, to become administrator, I thought it is adm in the group file, but it is not.
Have to search for it, or maby someone else can tell , that could help a lot.


Ureka, found it already, it is the admin entry not the adm entry ( sorry )

[steeldriver]

Seeing access-Your-Private-Data.desktop probably just means you had an encrypted home directory, which will make recovery a bit more complicated IF the data didn't get deleted with the account

I would suggest you create a new user account with administrator priviledges then you can log in to a graphical environment with that which will make the recovery easier for you.

I'm a bit lost with what's going on in this thread but basically once you are in the recovery mode and have dropped to a root shell you can do the following. There is no need to directly edit the /etc/passwd file to do this.

1. remount the filesystem with write permissions - if you've done an fsck it may already be read-write but this command won't hurt either way:

mount -o remount,rw /

[note there is NO SPACE between the rw and remount options - just a comma]

2. create a new user:

adduser newname

and just follow the on screen prompts

3. add the user to the sudo group

usermod -aG sudo newuser

If you plan on keeping the newuser as a regular administrator account you will probably want to add it to all the other typical groups i.e.

usermod -aG adm,cdrom,sudo,dip,plugdev,lpadmin,sambashare newuser

At that point you should be able to exit the root shell

exit

and resume normal boot, where you can log in via the GUI as newuser

[kuifje09]

If this : Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop does mean there is an encrypted file system, then the contend is lost I think?

Not lost ? http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1810825 But then why should I encrypt?

But it could mean his data is not lost, thanks for jumping in.

[kuifje09]

When you managed to create a user one way or the other. Then you could enter your old homedir ( cd /home/OLDUSER ) and as suggested in the other post ( link ) try to mount it : Just run ecryptfs-mount-private and enter your log in password. and copy ... read other post .
But with a little precise work you can also recreate your old user by hand... Not with usermod. ( I would not use usermod for that )

( i have to quit for now... )

[Tununias]

Ok, I made a new administrator account(I tested that sudo works and stuff). I don't think I'll be able to recover those files, but I'll be able to use this new account instead. Thank you everyone for all your help with this. I still don't know how to mark this as solved(someone sent a forum link about it, but it didn't help much), but I think that's it then.

[kuifje09]

Well I wish you good luck recovering your accounts and the encrypted filesystems.
I found a nice piece of documentation about ecryptfs : ECryptfs
So if the crypted filesystem is still there, you should find the .Private filesystem.

I am very curious if you had some luck in recovering.