Hi! I'm so sorry to hear that! I wish you the best for this hard time.
To me, it sounds like the system is unable to boot at all - the system will then put you in emergency mode but if the root account is locked you won't get access this way. I really hope you husband did not use full disk encryption (normally I would always recommend that but in this case...). If not, you can try booting the laptop from a live CD an check if you get access. 1. Download live CD (I'd recommended Ubuntu [1] or the Emergency Linux System from heise.de) 2. Burn it to a CD or copy it to a USB drive (just follow the instructions, there are plenty on the web) 3. Insert into the laptop, when booting, try to access the boot menu by repeatedly clicking F12, F8, ESC or DELETE (depends a bit on the laptop model). 4. Once you booted the live CD (nothing will happen at this case, just make sure to not "install" it), open the file-manager and check if the laptop's harddrive appears on the left side. 5. If it does and it's not encrypted, you should be able to access the data on his laptop. Personal stuff is likely stored under /home/<username>. 6. I'd recommend copying everything in that folder to a different USB stick or hard drive to make sure you have a backup. If that doesn't work out or other help is needed I'd suggest reaching out to the Archlinux sub-reddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/ . I'll hope we (archlinux list) and the community will be able to help you get access! Best wishes, [1] https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop Patrick Pacher *Tierklinik Dobersberg - Klinikleitung* Am-Szapary-Park 1a 3843 Dobersberg Tel: +43 2843 2800 38 Mail: [email protected] *www.tierklinikdobersberg.at <http://www.tierklinikdobersberg.at/>* Matteo Piccinini <[email protected]> schrieb am Mi., 18. Feb. 2026, 14:15: > Hi there, > > Sorry to hear that! > > On Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 1:46 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > [...] > >> I get the message: >> "You are in emergency mode. After logging in, type "journalctl -xb" to >> view system logs, "systemctl reboot" to reboot, or "exit" to continue >> bootup." > > [...] > > As been a while I’m not in this situation, as a first step you can give it > try to bypass the maintenance shell booting with init=/bin/bash > > If you have GRUB Bootloader: > > 1. Restart, wait for the GRUB menu. > 2. Highlight Arch Linux, press e to edit. > 3. On the line starting with linux, add init=/bin/bash at the end. > 4. Press Ctrl+X or F10 to boot. > > If you have systemd-boot bootloader: > Note: If the menu disappears fast (or timeout 0 is set), repeatedly tap > Space or Arrow keys... during boot to keep it open. > > 1. Reboot, wait for the systemd-boot menu. > 2. Highlight the correct entry, press e. > 3. Append init=/bin/bash to the end of the boot parameters line. > 4. Press Enter to boot. > > If init=/bin/bash fails, try replacing it with systemd.debug_shell. If > successful, you can access a debug shell by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F9. > > Best, > /m > >
