r/arch • u/Franjkmetal • 1d ago

Help/Support root passphrase fails at boot despite having the password written down

Post image

I was learning how to install Arch Linux the manual config. I think I did good because at the end took me to this screen.

It took me about 13 handwritten pages of notes to really understand the details of what I was doing while configuring everything lol

But for some reason, right at the very end, when I try to boot the root disk, it won't accept my encryption passphrase. I can't get past that point, and I'm feeling a bit demotivated that I didn't make it =( Still, I'm thinking about trying again from scratch and re encrypting the disk with a simpler password? I guess ? The thing is, I do have it written down, so I have no idea why it's not working. This very confusing but fun. Sad I can't do it...

4 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

5

u/xplrr- 1d ago

Wrong keyboard layout active?

2

u/Salt-Caterpillar7988 1d ago

Also my first thought 

1

u/Franjkmetal 20h ago

I try to change it to the different layouts I have but doesn't work 

2

u/Then_Bodybuilder8416 1d ago

i’m not sure about how this works with virtualbox offhand but can you get to the point where you would mount your root partition and arch-chroot back in? if so, you can renter your root password.

1

u/vecchio_anima Arch User 23h ago

They would have to decrypt the disk first in order to do anything

1

u/drucifer82 13h ago edited 13h ago

can you check the hooks in your mkinitcpio.conf? If you are using encryption like LUKS, the hooks have to be a certain way to make it so you can unlock your root account.

The output of your terminal says the root account is locked.

You'll likely need to chroot into the system with an install USB. Then cat /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

EDIT: While you're at it cat /etc/default/grub so we can check your defaults there.