That does not fail. I can cd /root/Desktop perfectly. What I decided to do is a fresh install to see where it was that I went wrong. fstab and mtab looked ok.
I did load the live cd, mounted and chrooted over and saw that echo $HOME did return /root. If I do not make mistakes I will not learn. This is a great mailing list I am very gratefull for the response time and help I am getting out of it. Hope to return the favour to someone in this list in the future whom is making the same mistakes I am currently making. Regards, Ninus.