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#1 2023-08-22 22:35:23

GenLo
Member
Registered: 2023-08-22
Posts: 2

[SOLVED] Reinstall arch without access to live cd or pacman

Hello,

I am currently running Arch on a single hard disk, encrypted root on a thinkpad T460 which boot directly on arch through efibootmgr with a minimal setup :
root@arch /etc # lsblk -f
NAME          FSTYPE      FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                       
├─sda1        vfat        FAT32       AC30-268A                             440,9M    14% /boot
├─sda2        swap        1           f9263db8-8101-487f-bcff-4dadd76fc89f                [SWAP]
└─sda3        crypto_LUKS 2           f48647e5-d732-4299-ab0b-7cd02b0435da               
  └─cryptroot ext4        1.0         62c2720a-921e-49ca-a7af-8b6210e688c0   24,5G    84% /

My system is currently quite broken, as I am unable to update my system or install other packages.
This is solely due to an error : I deleted everything under /var with no backup prior to the operation.
I tried to recover the pacman package list following the archiwiki and some posts on the forums but no success.

I am also unable to boot a live cd on my computer, since I locked the bios with a password a couple year back (which I have forgotten since).
I don't think I can erase the master boot password of my computer from my current OS, nor change the boot order (to force boot on a live cd).

I have an other computer running Linux though, if that's any help.

At this point, I'd rather go back from scratch and reinstall arch completely.
By not being able to boot a live cd and without using pacman on this system seems pretty undoable ?

From this point, I can think of two option (but there might be more ?) :
- Write with efibootmgr a new entry on my bios, which my computer could default to (hence booting on a live cd afterwards) ?
- Or, my best guess at this point is that I could live boot an archlinux iso on my other computer, add my hard drive there as well, install a fresh Archlinux on the hardrive using the current partitions and plug it back in my Thinkpad ? The UUID of my SDA3 partition would not change, maybe only the cryptroot one, hence this wouldn't be a problem when I try to boot into it ?

Thanks in advance for the help you can provide,

Regards,

Last edited by GenLo (2023-08-24 09:06:22)

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#2 2023-08-22 23:02:20

jonno2002
Member
Registered: 2016-11-21
Posts: 765

Re: [SOLVED] Reinstall arch without access to live cd or pacman

a quick search seems to indicate that f12 or fn+f12 should bring up the bios/uefi boot menu, which should allow you to select the arch usb to boot from.
im not familiar with lenovos, the master password might prevent this action, if it does your second solution should work fine, thats the reason we use UUID's, so it doesnt matter what machine you put the drive in it can always find the correct filesystem to boot from.

also found this page which deals with how to remove the master password.

Last edited by jonno2002 (2023-08-22 23:02:58)

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#3 2023-08-24 09:07:26

GenLo
Member
Registered: 2023-08-22
Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Reinstall arch without access to live cd or pacman

Hello,

The MBR indeed stop me from accessing the boot menu.

Reinstalling through my other computer went fine, no issue regarding the UUID.
Thanks for the confirmation that this was indeed the way to go.

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