After I've given the root user a password, how do I log in and use that account?

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I’ve followed the instructions in https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/howto-cannot-open-access-to-console-the-root-account-is-locked-in-emergency-mode-dracut-emergency-shell/2010/17.

Now, when I boot it asks the root password, which I set with the above instructions.

After that, I put the new root password and I am to the shell as root. What I should do to bring the GUI and login to my desktop?

I tried the “startx” command, but nothing happened.

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@dimgs, hi!

You usually don’t go to emergency mode to “startx”, computer goes there when it cannot boot normally. Emergency mode is usually used to troubleshoot things preventing normal boot – usually using cli commands. Then you just reboot into normal mode.

Here’s an FedoraMagazine article that gives some very brief overview of things you can do in emergency mode:

Look for “The Dracut Emergency Shell” subtitle.

I suggest you create a new topic, and we’ll troubleshoot there why your system refused to boot in normal mode and dumped you to emergency mode.

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After changing the mount point as the instructions above, I am trying to copy-paste some images from my “home” folder:

fedora_localhost–live-home

to an external HDD, but I receive this:

Error reading from file: Input/output error

How can I roll-back the mount points?

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Hey @dimgs. Since your issue seems not strictly related to this topic (indeed this topic talks about how to enable the root account in order to use it in emergency mode) and you are experiencing a problem (it could also be a failing hard disk) while doing something other, well I suggest you to open another topic (post). :wink:

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I have exactly the same experience…I can login to this new ‘root’ but that does not really help as I cannot recover anything from the old installation even though I can ‘see’ it . It seems that everyone assumes that getting to the ‘root’ will solve everything - I have no idea how to proceed. I will search other solutions but since I have done the steps suggested here (and the linked page), it is even harder to explain what help I need?
I was hoping to learn Fedora OS in a much less stressful way, my Fedora laptop is now not usable (for a couple of weeks already), I feel like wiping everything and installing it again.

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Hi @znam and welcome to Ask Fedora!

Logging in as root usually gives you power to resolve most issues preventing normal boot/login of your system. Of course, you have to have some idea of what to do, it won’t resolve itself.

The issue at question on this page prevents people from accessing recovery console – even for people who do know what to do once there – and for completely unexpected reason. That was the reason for this post – not as a way to solve any issue, but as a way to login to recovery console, nothing more.

One of the most often encountered reasons (but not the only one) your system dumps you to emergency console is it can’t mount your root or home filesystem. Quite often in such a case you can run fsck manually from a recovery console to resolve some filesystem issues.

For more specific help you need to create a new topic explaining your problem, provide any error messages you can see – either as text or as screenshots. The reasons for boot failure are different, the solutions will be different as well. To provide any help / advice we need to know, what’s the actual problem in your case.

Edit: I see you’ve already created a new topic. We can troubleshoot your problem there.

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