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At boot, systemd turns every line of /etc/fstab into a .mount unit required by local-fs.target.
The archive disk was removed, but its line stayed: systemd waits 90 s for UUID 7c1e4b2a-…, gives up,
and since the mount is mandatory (no nofail), it switches to emergency mode. The kernel and the
disks still present have nothing to do with it.
Incident resolved
Analysis and fix
Fix: remount the root filesystem read-write (mount -o remount,rw /), comment out the /archives line
in /etc/fstab (or add nofail,x-systemd.device-timeout=10s), then systemctl daemon-reload and
systemctl default (or reboot).
To prevent a repeat:
- removing a disk = remove its fstab line first, then pull the hardware;
- use
nofailfor any disk the system does not need to boot (archives, USB, NAS); - after any change:
findmnt --verifyandmount -abefore rebooting; - keep a tested console access (iDRAC, IPMI): without it, this server would have stayed unreachable.