command line - Ubuntu 14.04 Login Loop from running startx in root

I made a really big mistake and no other articles seem to be fixing this. I was trying to fix my new Ubuntu laptop that I bought because it has the username defualt (spelled wrong) and I didn't like the terminal showing defualt@defualtHP. I think I was able to change it to rootMLR@MLR. I did this from pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 and using commands I looked up. Then I stupidly entered "startx". Now I can't log in as rootMLR.

So far I have tried:

1. chown rootMLR:defualt .Xauthority
   The output for ls -lah is now:

   
   
   

    -rw------- 1 rootMLR defualt 0 Nov  00:46 .Xauthority
   
   

   
   
   

   If i try chown rootMLR:rootMLR .Xauthority it says invalid group.

   
   
   

   How can I tell what I should put in the chown command?

   
   
   

   But when I reboot, I still am stuck in a log in loop.

   
   
   

   After the reboot when I try chown rootMLR:defualt .Xauthority it says cannot access '.Xauthority' No such file or directory.




2. I tried deleting it with rm /home/rootMLR/.Xauthority and then rebooting but it doesn't work.

This is all because I stupidly did startx from the Ctrl+Alt+F1 windows.

I'm not attached to this at all yet; is there a way to restore factory defaults or even delete a user all together or something? Or restore the entire operating system to default? I don't have a boot disk or anything for this unfortunately. I can't believe it was working fine and I messed it up; this is very frustrating.

Any help would be immensely appreciated. I need this PC for a project for work and I spent a lot of money on it. I am a super-noob, I need command-by-command instructions if possible. I use Red Hat at work and I really want to start using Linux at home but now I'm very worried that I will not be able to fix this.