Most probably due to a buggy custom kernel, fsck on /dev/sda2, i.e the root partition, failed with a rootfs prompt and an invitation to run fsck on /dev/sda2 presented. On having done that and rebooted, when performing fsck on /dev/sda2, the system reported that: /dev/sda2 had not been cleanly unmounted 0.4% non-contiguous blocks mounting /dev/sda2 on real root EXT4-fs (sda2) mounted filesystem without journal Root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist. The wiki article on fsck troubleshooting, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fsck#Troubleshooting, suggests using tune2fs to write a new journal to /dev/sda2. But it doesn't seem to be available when in rootfs. Booting into the Arch Linux installation CD and mounting /dev/sda2 over /mnt reveals lost+found as the sole contents of the directory. As an experiment, mounting /dev/sda1 over /mnt confirms the presence of all the files there are on my boot partition. Any pointers on how to proceed with this would be much appreciated.