Arch Linux

proxy-the-great

Member

Registered: 2025-06-01

Posts: 1

While building an archiso, my system deleted itself.

Hello, I'm on an ASUS laptop with a basic KDE plasma arch linux install. I'm dual booting arch (600Gb) and windows (290Gb) on a single 1tb drive.

I was making a normal archiso, I simply configured it's packages list and then proceeded to build it with the .iso output being /home/AereoArch/. During the procedure I got a memory shortage warning, and linux closed my browser, file manager and terminal, when I re-opened the terminal I tried once again to build the iso but I got an error saying it couldn't complete the operation and sudo was busy. I tried opening the browser but no apps responded, I wasn't able to shutdown, when I locked the screen I only had a "sleep" option that didn't work. After a while (maybe half an hour) it was still unresponsive, so I just held the power button to shut it down.

Now my arch linux and grub paritions are gone with no trace, however I can boot into windows and it works fine.

I know I probably can't recover my data but what caused this? I don't remember typing 'sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root'

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,278

Re: While building an archiso, my system deleted itself.

I don't remember typing 'sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root'

That would also not remove any partitions…
Boot some live distro (grml, arch install iso) and check what's actually there ("lsblk -f")

and sudo was busy

so what command *did* you actually sudo? And why?
Was it https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archis … _directory ?

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qinohe

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2012-06-20

Posts: 1,579

Re: While building an archiso, my system deleted itself.

hen proceeded to build it with the .iso output being /home/AereoArch/. During the procedure I got a memory shortage warning, and linux closed my browser, file manager and terminal

Warning: If mkarchiso is interrupted, run findmnt(8) to make sure there are no mount binds before deleting it - otherwise, you may lose data

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archis … _directory

Of course without any logs we can't be certain this has anything to do with the current situation.
Chroot into your installation and check if this is the case and if so repair it.