user account changes lost on reboot

[Lowell Gilbert]

Jarrod Harch <jarrod.harch at gmail.com> writes:

Jarrod Harch <jarrod.harch at gmail.com> writes:

> Hi, I just setup a new 5.4 install, which went fairly well. I added
> some accounts - I used adduser to do one account, and logged on as the
> user OK. The other account was created when I installed gdm as the
> display manager.
> 
> On rebooting the root password is missing, the user account I created
> is also gone (but the home directory and files are still there). gdm
> won't start, complaining that the gdm user doesn't exist.
> 
> I recreated the user again but it vanished after the next boot.
> 
> Does anyone know what might cause these account changes to be lost?
> Sorry if this has been answered already, I couldn't find anything on
> Google or mailing lists.

This is pretty weird all right.  Is the user's home directory still
present?  If you run vipw(8), do you see the user there?