"Folderol"  wrote in message
news:20190607105609.591becc1@devuan...
> I would also hope someone has notified ROOL. A faulty
> device shouldn't hang the computer.

I was surprised that the absence of a USB hub and hard disc, with an
automount of this disc into a sub-directory of "Pi" user's home directory,
prevented my Pi (3B+, Raspbian Stretch) from booting. It gave a very brief
message about "unable to mount" and booting stopped dead in its tracks. I'd
expect that situation to be treated as a warning, and for booting to proceed
with the proviso that the external HDD would not appear in the tree
structure.

It was easily rectified, by plugging in the hub/HDD - I was trying for a
bare-minimum setup for a confidence test, having just installed the Pi in my
new house after packing it up (working) at the old house. It took longer to
diagnose than otherwise, because the Pi is no longer in the same room as my
Windows PC with its monitor, so I had to move monitor, keyboard and mouse to
the Pi in the other room to work out why it wasn't booting.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05