gnome-settings-daemon not starting when I login
Sounds like a corrupt configuration.
You can recover without making a new account.
Boot to recovery mode. You will be in a command line interface without a graphical interface. Run the following commands:
cd /home
mv your_user your_user.bak
mkdir your_user
chown your_user:your_user your_user
chmod 770 your_user
change "your_user" to your user name.
Exit the root shell and continue the normal boot process.
You should be able to log in as normal. You can copy your old data from your_user.bak to your home directory as needed.