A couple weeks after I installed the xfce desktop version of Linux Mint, I became unable to log in to my own desktop. I enter my password, but the screen fades to black and then fades back in to the login screen.

I am able to log in using the recovery mode terminal and everything works as expected. I can log in to the Mint desktop as root, but the superuser can't view my files. Instead, there are only a .desktop file and a README telling me that my files have been unmounted (they're not on their own partition) and they give me instructions on how to remount them.

So I follow the instructions. Running the .desktop through the browser GUI quickly opens and closes a terminal, doing nothing. Running ecryptfs-mount-private, as the README recommends, reports:

And that's where I'm stuck.

Just to ask before going any further... Are you trying to log into using root the whole time? Using root to log in through your GUI should not be done; It is very unsafe.

No. I logged in as root only to see if it worked and then tried out the files that were in my user account's home folder.

Try looking at this:

http://goshawknest.wordpress.com/201...ory-in-ubuntu/

I can't fully view it being at work, and I don't have access to linux right now. I know that's for ubuntu, but that should put you in the right direction.

Josh

I read through the article, and I think that's all I'll need if you can help me follow step 1, which asks me to mount a partition to /home. I created a generous ext4 partition for it in GParted, but I don't know how to do anything toward mounting it to /home.

Look in your /dev directory. Your hard drive should either be sdaX or hdaX. You need to use the mount command and mount it to whatever directory you need to. Like so:
Of course that is an example. Read the man page to mount to learn more about it.

The instructions tell me to create a new user with my existing name, but the terminal just tells me that the account already exists.

So then proceed from there. I will be able to assist a lot mote once I get gome in another hour and some.

I can't. The next steps involve running the same command I tried earlier, after failing to run su on your user account. For me, the su command succeeds but ecryptfs-mount-private fails, just like it did before.

Ok. Will you be online in an hour? I'm leaving work in a half hour, and will be on shortly after. I will definitely assist you in troubleshooting then.

Josh

Well, I really should be going to sleep. It's not that urgent; I can still use the computer pretty well.

Oh, and now that I mounted the new partition, my /home/user directory seems to have disappeared.

^ Nevermind, this fixed itself after a restart, but I still can't log in. ^

Here's the result of me playing around with this. I'm not sure whether or not this will shed light on the problem.


The-Falconette ~ # cd /home/the-tyrian
The-Falconette the-tyrian # ls
Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop README.txt
The-Falconette the-tyrian # su the-tyrian
the-tyrian@The-Falconette ~ $ ls
Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop README.txt
the-tyrian@The-Falconette ~ $ cd .
the-tyrian@The-Falconette ~ $ ls
bin Minecraft-Server ROMs Stuff.png
Desktop Music Run-Notes_files Templates
Documents Network Run-Notes.html Videos
Downloads Pictures Screenshot1.png VisualBoyAdvance.cfg
Fencing Videos ps.txt Screenshot.png
Link to wireshark.exe Public Software.ini
the-tyrian@The-Falconette ~ $ exit
exit
The-Falconette the-tyrian # ls
Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop README.txt
The-Falconette the-tyrian #