Cannot open access to console,the root account is locked.
Press enter to continue
Pressing enter gives
Starting default.target
And than nothing.
If you really want to get into a root shell, set a password for the root account right now. I tend to do this asap on a new machine, as by the time I need it, it’s too late to mess about with it.
You can always just boot with init=/bin/bash and set the password and then reboot into single user mode to clean things up should you need to.
I would be curious to know how you got into this situation.
No context or information is provided at all.
I refer you to the guide here on Fedora:
My emphasis added to the quoted section.
I rebooted a system that was running flawlessly before. I’m not sure how to provide more information than that.
There is nothing similar in the links you provided.
If I knew the system could not be rebooted I would very well be able to provide more information..
This solution is from 2019
Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked in emergency mode (dracut emergency shell)
is that still valid? (The link in the solution is a 404)
It could be something done to the system since the last boot, for example changing the disk layout or modifying the fstab file to mount a non-existing file system, or it could be a need file system or disk unit that has been disconnected or otherwise not available. Or something completely different like an incomplete update operation.
Linux runs on a wide range of hardware, so it is important to have hardware details. Support for Linux outside large enterprises is mostly a community effort, so your best source of help is often other users with access to similar hardware and software. If your system is from a large vendor you should be able to find details for your model on the vendor’s site. If you have a Live USB installer and are able to boot that with internet access, you can install inxi and run inxi -ezxx in a terminal to get a short text summary suitable for posting here (as pre-formatted, web discoverable text to maximize chance the people best able to help will be able to find it).
After a reboot the next day it started normally. The error is as descriptive as my original question. Apparently the root cause is cannot locate /home (it could say so, but 
).
These are the two nvmes installed:
=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02, NSID 0xffffffff)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 40 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 1%
Percentage Used: 21%
Data Units Read: 231’787’981 [118 TB]
Data Units Written: 161’734’459 [82.8 TB]
Host Read Commands: 3’963’805’006
Host Write Commands: 3’205’954’363
Controller Busy Time: 233’867
Power Cycles: 2’143
Power On Hours: 47’166
Unsafe Shutdowns: 530
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 51’331
Warning Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Critical Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Temperature Sensor 2: 99 Celsius
and
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: KINGSTON SKC1000240G
Serial Number: 50026B727602271A
Firmware Version: E7FT04.6
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x1987
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x6479a7
Controller ID: 0
NVMe Version: 1.2
Number of Namespaces: 1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 240’057’409’536 [240 GB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 512
Local Time is: Wed Jul 1 07:31:42 2026 CEST
Firmware Updates (0x02): 1 Slot
Optional Admin Commands (0x0007): Security Format Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x001e): Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat
Log Page Attributes (0x03): S/H_per_NS Cmd_Eff_Lg
Maximum Data Transfer Size: 512 Pages
Warning Comp. Temp. Threshold: 110 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold: 130 Celsius
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: Samsung SSD 960 EVO 500GB
Serial Number: S3EUNX0J216946K
Firmware Version: 3B7QCXE7
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x144d
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x002538
Total NVM Capacity: 500’107’862’016 [500 GB]
Unallocated NVM Capacity: 0
Controller ID: 2
NVMe Version: 1.2
Number of Namespaces: 1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 500’107’862’016 [500 GB]
Namespace 1 Utilization: 440’012’730’368 [440 GB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 512
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64: 002538 5271b0cce2
Local Time is: Wed Jul 1 07:30:51 2026 CEST
Firmware Updates (0x16): 3 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0007): Security Format Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x001f): Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat
Log Page Attributes (0x03): S/H_per_NS Cmd_Eff_Lg
Maximum Data Transfer Size: 512 Pages
Warning Comp. Temp. Threshold: 77 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold: 79 Celsius
=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02, NSID 0xffffffff)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 40 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 10%
Percentage Used: 6%
Data Units Read: 86’457’377 [44.2 TB]
Data Units Written: 73’069’843 [37.4 TB]
Host Read Commands: 925’007’327
Host Write Commands: 1’050’597’449
Controller Busy Time: 4’381
Power Cycles: 2’258
Power On Hours: 17’913
Unsafe Shutdowns: 566
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 11’626
Warning Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Critical Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Temperature Sensor 1: 40 Celsius
Temperature Sensor 2: 44 Celsius
The 99 and 110/130 Celsius are high enough to fry an egg but It is unclear if this was history or the current situation.
Q: can I add a sensor for smart temp to the KDE Plasma Panel?