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So I managed to uninstall my kernel

In an effort to get VMware Workstation running I needed to downgrade my kernel. I installed the new kernel and got everything setup. Sometime later the system reverted to the newer version.

I already had the package exclusion IgnorePjg = linux, linux-headers in pacman.conf. So I decided to purge the newer kernel 3.16 from the system. After doing so, I reinstalled the downlevel kernel 3.13. However I was not paying attention when it failed. Little did I know the /boot/ directory was empty when I rebooted. Ouch.

Thankfully everything I needed was on the system. Just need to get into it. So I boot into the archlinux.iso and setup a chroot into the existing system.

System Repair

My partion layout is as follows:

  • sda1 = /boot
  • sda2 = swap
  • sda3 = /root

Boot into the live CD and create a new directory for the mount point. Mount the /root then /boot file systems onto the new mount point.

# mkdir /mnt/arch
# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/arch
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/arch/boot

Change directory into /mnt/arch and chroot the mounted filesystem.

# cd /mnt/arch
# mount -t proc proc proc/
# mount -t sysfs sys sys/
# mount -o bind /dev dev/
# chroot . /bin/bash
[root@archiso /]#

Inside the chroot you have access to your broken system. I have the kernel and headers downloaded already. Otherwise the packages could be found in the pacman cache /var/cache/pacman/pkg/.

Reinstall the kernel..

pacman -U --force linux-3.13.7-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz linux-headers-3.13.7-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

Verify

This time I double checked /boot.

# ls /boot
total 23568
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root     1024 Sep 15 07:54 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16859876 Sep 15 08:22 initramfs-linux-fallback.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3280187 Sep 15 08:22 initramfs-linux.img
drwx------ 2 root root    12288 Jan 29  2014 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3979248 Mar 24 15:07 vmlinuz-linux