Yesterday, after turning on Ubuntu, I logged into a Gnome session. A few minutes later, I tried switching to Unity for a change. Unfortunately, the background and my desktop icons loaded, but the system bar and launcher failed to load even after several minutes. Unity had always worked fine for me.

I then tried the guest account, and it worked fine on both Unity and Gnome. However, the problem with my account got worse; I couldn't log into any desktop at all anymore. I would type in my password and press enter and it would just sit there doing nothing. The computer no longer responded in any way, so I had to hold the power button and reboot. The same problem happened repeatedly.

Earlier today, I tried to get on again. I found that I hadthe same problem, when I tried to log in, the computer no longer locked up, but instead flashed a black screen with theconsole output and what seemed to be an error message before returning to the log in screen. It was to quick for me to read, about 1/4-1/2 second.

I'd really appreciate some help as I have some important files that are not backed up yet. I can't transfer the files to a new account, or even make a new account because I tried taking the password off my account so now I can't authenticate from the guest to perform root functions.

I'd really appreciate some help as I have some important files that are not backed up yet. Thanks.