Hi forums! I’m a newbie (using xfce) and have done the inevitible, my device doesn’t boot - it gets stuck on the boot screen after failing a few functions (see image).
Context: prior to this happening, I was attempting to connect an external hdd, however, it wasn’t mounting and I could not access the drive - my device did recognize the hdd as being plugged in however. I did some searching online and came across a thread for someone else dealing with the same problem, the solution which worked for the OP mentioned downgrading util-linux & util-linux-libs. So I (probably like the biggest noob) attempted the command for the downgrade, which was successful and then rebooted my system, unfortunately this is where it began to fail and has brought me to the current problem 
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So how do I fix this without losing my data? I tried to use Ctrl + alt + f3 and login, weirdly though it keeps saying my login is incorrect, despite using the same username and PW I use to sign onto my device. I imagine I could also boot from a drive, however, I’m not sure what I would need to do because I lack the experience.
The aforementioned thread: Unable to mount ntfs drives
The command I used: sudo pacman -U https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/u/util-linux/util-linux-2.38.1-4-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/u/util-linux-libs/util-linux-libs-2.38.1-4-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
