I can only login as guest

I can only login as guest

I did a password change. It wasn't memorable enough. I reset my password
using a series of commands from the root shell in recovery mode:
"mount -rw -o remount /" [enter]
"passwd {username}" [enter]
Entered new password. ""
Successfully changed.
"Exit" [enter]
restart computer. I then entered my password and it acted like it was
going to log on but brought me back to the login page.
I used Ctrl + Alt + F1 and logged in successfully. dir and ls yield two
files: README.txt , and Something along the lines of
desktop-private-files-and-folders.dir . I cannot cd to any directory.
I tried to use the live cd but in the test profile when I try to access
the information on my mounted hard drive it tells me that I do not have
permission to access. Neither can I copy that information.
I have tried to be as thorough and detailed as possible without adding any
fluff. please, can someone help me I have documents on there that I have
been editing and I haven't saved externally recently enough for my saved
files to be of any use to me.
Again thank you!