I'm using Debian 9.5 Stretch
I had a disk (1tb) mounted as /home/myuname/x1. The x1 disk failed. The disk's data is unimportant. But, I do need more space.
Ergo, I got a new disk (4tb); I intended to replace the disk and use gparted to intialize and partition the new disk but, I have been unable to re-enter the gui.
Upon boot, following grub, I am automatically placed in emergency mode (I suspect init 2, with no external services). I logged-in as root. I deleted the /home/myuname/x1 directory. Rebooted, then successfully reestablished the mount point using the same name /home/myuname/x1. Then I attempted to mount /dev/sda /home/myuname/x1. No Joy.
I haven't partitioned the disk, only initialized it as a gpt disk. Since it has no partitions (e.g, sda1 -system disk is sdb) I can't get it to mount. gparted would make quick work of this but since I cannot access the gui and can only log in in emergency mode, I cannot use gparted.
Still, I don't understand why a failed mount point in my home directory -a non-system data disk- would cause the whole os to fail into emergency mode. I want to access the gui to fix this problem. Any suggestions for entering the gui (init 5)?