I have mint18 cinnamon installed on my Toshiba Satellite C850 and can remember the password but can't remember the username.
 

Hello all, I have mint18 cinnamon installed on

my Toshiba Satellite C850 and can remember the

password but can't remember the username. Is

there any way to either retrieve or set up a

new one, your help would be much appreciated,

cheers.
stringybark

Is the username, or a list of usernames, not shown on the main login screen? It should be.

No, when I switch on it requires me to put in a password then it does its magic and a new page comes which requires me to press f1 which then brings up a username log in window and when I get it wrong a message in red at the top right of the page tells me to select the correct caps, and on it goes.

You may need to boot in single user mode or from live CD. Then you can do and you'll see the home directories, named after users.

Is that, Is /home/ can I use any live cd or does it need to be mint?

Any live cd should be fine. You just need to see the name(s) listed under /home

Sorry I'm a bit slow to pick up here, where do I type /home when I start fatdog?

open a shell. also called terminal sometimes. this needs a basic knowledge on how to work with a linux shell. usually around 10 pages to read in any linux book. This usually also covers also /etc/passwd /etc/shadow. how a user is created, deleted and such.

mount your linux partition => e.g. gentoo wiki / arch linux wiki on how to do that

ls -alh /home

--

you can also look into

cat /etc/passwd

or

cat /etc/shadow

Using a live disk, mount the first partition of the hard drive and then use the
cat /etc/passwd
in the terminal emulator. The last entry is usually the one you want, so mine has
david:x:500:501:David McCann:/home/david:/bin/bash
My user name, IDs, real name, home directory, and choice of shell. The only thing you don't get in passwd is the password!

I'd use a modern live cd and use file manager to access the original drive. Then navigate to /home and see what users exist there.

Thanks all for your suggestions, this will take me a while, win or lose I'll get back and let you know. Cheers, and all the best for Christmas!

Thanks for all your help, I was unable to find a way in, probably my ineptness so I installed SYLVIA which seems to be running ok, didn't have too much to lose so life's good. Cheers and all the best for New Year!