diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index be445ea7..99052b72 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/).
 - Allow whitespace to be trimmed for wwdoc comments. #2109
 - update go-chi to 5.2.5 to fix  CVE-2025-69725
 - Prevented profile `comment` field from being inherited by nodes. #2078
+- Error handling for /newroot mount during single-stage boot
+- Bugfix for command-line arguments during single-stage image unpacking
 
 ### Added
 
diff --git a/overlays/wwinit/rootfs/init b/overlays/wwinit/rootfs/init
index 239822e4..345ff590 100755
--- a/overlays/wwinit/rootfs/init
+++ b/overlays/wwinit/rootfs/init
@@ -52,9 +52,10 @@ else
     else
         mount ${WWROOT} /newroot
     fi
+    mountpoint -q /newroot || die "warewulf: ERROR: failed to mount ${WWROOT} at /newroot"
 
     info "warewulf: copying image to /newroot..."
-    tar -cf - --exclude ./proc --exclude ./sys --exclude ./dev --exclude --exclude ./newroot . | tar -xf - -C /newroot
+    tar -cf - --exclude ./proc --exclude ./sys --exclude ./dev --exclude ./newroot . | tar -xf - -C /newroot
 
     mkdir /newroot/proc /newroot/dev /newroot/sys 2>/dev/null