Upgrade from source to RC1: problems with /etc : lost users and dbus

I just finished the upgrade from source from 9.0-BETA2 to RC1, and I find two problems.

First, I lost my users; nonroot user names are not recognized, if for instance I type

passwd arlene

I already tried to login as arlene with old password, no good.

I copied the /etc directory to a backup on another disk 

cp -Rp /etc  /media/etcbackup-BETA2

and then copied back /media/etcbackup-BETA2/passwd (and group) to /etc

but that didn't help.

Do I have to recreate nonroot users from scratch?

Also, I got a warning about DBUS not starting.

When I tried to startx as root, I got into X, but mouse and keyboard were nonfunctional; 
I did type Ctrl-Alt-F1 and Ctrl-C to get out of X.

I think it was the second mergemaster part.

Should I, as root and X not running, do

mv /etc /etcbackup-RC1

and

cp -Rp /media/etcbackup-BETA2 /etc

where /media would be mount point for backup partition on USB 3.0 hard drive?

The second invocation of mergemaster (after booting single-user) can wreak havoc on /etc .

As I type this, I am in my older installation of FreeBSD 9.0-BETA1 but have access to RC1 partition.

By the way, /etc/rc.conf remained intact, showing that hald_enable and dbus_enable are still there:


hostname="amelia2"
keymap=us.iso.kbd
ifconfig_re0="DHCP"
ifconfig_re0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
sshd_enable="YES"
moused_enable="YES"
ntpd_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"

Tom