[Howto] Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked in emergency mode. Enter admin password for maintenance

[matl (Tobias Masiak)]

Hello,

I was updating Fedora 32. The system was shut down the last 3 weeks, today after starting up again my home server, it installed several updates. After rebooting the system was actually no longer able to boot into the grafical user system.

During booting it showed such a message: “Your are in emergency mode. After logging in, type ‘journalctl -xb’ to view system logs, ‘systemctl reboot’ to reboot, ‘systemctl default’. The root-account is locked.

With a Fedora live medium I chrooted into the system and set a root password as follow:
“passwd root”
and rebooted the system again.

Now after reboot the system is asking me for a root password to get shell access for maintenance.

What and how can I fix the system that my Gnome UI is starting again?
Running “systemctl start gdm.service” just throws again the messeage that I am in emergency mode.

Best regards
matl

[rkudyba (Rob Kudyba)]

Have a look at the suggestions here.

[matl (Tobias Masiak)]

Thanks for sharing the information. I found a solution.
Somehow my external HDD is not working in one of the USB plugs, therefore the entry in /etc/fstab blocked the pc from booting correctly.
Found the ingormation in the journal: