Okay, in my rush, as I began following the instructions on Your princess is in another castle…, I didn't realize that I actually needed to open up the case to be able to flash the BIOS. I had the developer switch activated, but missed the internal part.

So, as I went along the rest of the instructions, eventually I got Luigi running (side note: I might have held enter or some key slightly too long: the disclaimer flew by quickly and I did not see it. Perhaps you should implement a "enter 'YES' in all caps" confirmation or something).

Once Luigi was running, it began the process of attempting to flash the BIOS with the custom version. It downloaded fine, ran fine, began the writing attempt and then failed on erase. I did not write down the error, but it was extremely similar to this guy's error (I recall a part about "Expected=0xff, Read=0x5f"). I then realized it was because I missed opening the case to allow the BIOS writing, and so figured it should be harmless to reboot.

Well, rebooting just brought up the "Chrome OS is missing or damaged" message screen. I thought as long as it's bringing this up, it should be relatively fine. I attempted recovery using the official Chrome OS recovery method. The recovery went through all the steps and had no errors. I then removed the USB drive and rebooted as directed by the recovery process. However, it only showed the "Chrome OS is missing or damaged" screen again.

I attempted doing this several more times, and lastly tried the unofficial Chromium OS builds from Todd Vierling. Those builds flashed as expected, however, the system still boots to a "Chrome OS is missing or damaged" screen.

Before I do any more damage, I was hoping to get some feedback on steps I can take to get the CR-48 back to "stock"--or in some way get back to a terminal so that I can reattempt to flash (properly this time ).

I'm not entirely certain what state the failed flash left my system in, but if the partitions were recreated by the official and unofficial Chrome OS build installs, and the BIOS was write-locked when it failed the Luigi flash, then what could be the problem? Are my assumptions wrong? What else could/did Luigi script flash attempt do that I will need to fix?

Thanks for any help!

Bump for visibility.

I got cr48 and installed ubuntu on it on the next day without flashing BIOS. But after I found your custom firmware and decided to try it. I did it under ubuntu loaded from internal SSD and I didn't put off back case. Flashing was with errors and I got cr48 with "Crome OS damaged" screen only.

I tried official recovery image, process was successful but after rebooting it was "Crome OS damaged" screen only.

After I compiled my own recovery chromium os image from Chromium OS Developer Guide - The Chromium Projects.
I found out that recovery process execute /usr/bin/chromeos-install with chroot to USB stick.
I downloaded http://hexxeh.gtisc.gatech.edu/downl...ios/custom.bin and put it into /home/chronos/ on C-ROOT USB partition. I changed "chromeos-install" like
"flashrom -w /home/chronos/custom.bin"
I left this only string

I put off back case. Plugged cr48. Turned it on. It was asking recovery again. I inserted USB stick and cr48 was flashed automatic. And I got working cr48.


@rma4ok

Sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar. It worked! Thanks!

One minor correction for future readers:

When you say "/usr/bin/chromeos-install", it is actually "/usr/sbin/chromeos-install" (sbin, not bin).

Originally Posted by gabraham

Okay, in my rush, as I began following the instructions on Your princess is in another castle…, I didn't realize that I actually needed to open up the case to be able to flash the BIOS. I had the developer switch activated, but missed the internal part.

So, as I went along the rest of the instructions, eventually I got Luigi running (side note: I might have held enter or some key slightly too long: the disclaimer flew by quickly and I did not see it. Perhaps you should implement a "enter 'YES' in all caps" confirmation or something).

Once Luigi was running, it began the process of attempting to flash the BIOS with the custom version. It downloaded fine, ran fine, began the writing attempt and then failed on erase. I did not write down the error, but it was extremely similar to this guy's error (I recall a part about "Expected=0xff, Read=0x5f"). I then realized it was because I missed opening the case to allow the BIOS writing, and so figured it should be harmless to reboot.

Well, rebooting just brought up the "Chrome OS is missing or damaged" message screen. I thought as long as it's bringing this up, it should be relatively fine. I attempted recovery using the official Chrome OS recovery method. The recovery went through all the steps and had no errors. I then removed the USB drive and rebooted as directed by the recovery process. However, it only showed the "Chrome OS is missing or damaged" screen again.

I attempted doing this several more times, and lastly tried the unofficial Chromium OS builds from Todd Vierling. Those builds flashed as expected, however, the system still boots to a "Chrome OS is missing or damaged" screen.

Before I do any more damage, I was hoping to get some feedback on steps I can take to get the CR-48 back to "stock"--or in some way get back to a terminal so that I can reattempt to flash (properly this time ).

I'm not entirely certain what state the failed flash left my system in, but if the partitions were recreated by the official and unofficial Chrome OS build installs, and the BIOS was write-locked when it failed the Luigi flash, then what could be the problem? Are my assumptions wrong? What else could/did Luigi script flash attempt do that I will need to fix?

Thanks for any help!

you can restore to Chrome stock using instructions from this....
Chrome OS on the Google Cr-48: Recovering your Cr-48 to Factory Settings

I don't quite understand as I cannot mount C-ROOT to gain access to the files within.

From everything I've read, you cannot mount that volume with the official build from Google (?). So are you speaking of injecting Hexxeh's BIOS into Todd's builds or building from scratch and injecting into that?

Originally Posted by truebluecougarman

you can restore to Chrome stock using instructions from this....
Chrome OS on the Google Cr-48: Recovering your Cr-48 to Factory Settings

As already stated in my original post, the normal recovery method did not work. Something else (that I'm still unsure of) got messed up at the time.

In any case, the problem was fixed as per rma4ok's method posted above.

Just wanted to say never-mind.

For those that may have gotten a bit lost, download a Todd Vierling build linked to above and inject the Hexxeh BIOS into that.

Once I got over that knowledge hump, easy-peasey.

Originally Posted by screamingfit

I don't quite understand as I cannot mount C-ROOT to gain access to the files within.

From everything I've read, you cannot mount that volume with the official build from Google (?). So are you speaking of injecting Hexxeh's BIOS into Todd's builds or building from scratch and injecting into that?

(I noticed you posted that you figured it out as I was typing this, however I decided to still post this step-by-step guide for others who may have run into this problem.)

I didn't try the official Google build, I used Todd's custom build, but I would imagine the process to be the same, assuming no other issues.

Step-by-step guide for this method:

1. Burn one of Todd Vierling's community build image to a USB flash drive with approximately 4GB minimum capacity. You can use the "Startup Disk Creator" included with Ubuntu, or Universial USB Installer on Windows.
2. Download hexxeh's custom firmware AND NOTE THE FOLLOWING:
   WARNING: THIS FIRMWARE IS ONLY FOR THE GOOGLE CR-48 NETBOOK/LAPTOP. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THIS ON ANY OTHER DEVICE OR YOU WILL BRICK (I.E., UTTERLY RUIN) YOUR COMPUTER.
   
3. On Linux (or any OS with support for reading/writing the flash drive's partitions), mount the drive and look for the C-ROOT partition
4. On the flash drive, browse to:
   
   Code:

   /home/chronos/

   And copy the custom firmware file that you downloaded, "custom.bin", into that folder
5. On the flash drive, edit the script (using gedit or a text editor of your choice) at "/usr/sbin/chromeos-install" to contain ONLY the following:
   
   Code:

   #!/bin/bash
   flashrom -w /home/chronos/custom.bin

   Save the changes and double check to ensure that everything is in order.
   
   Note: You may need administrator privileges in order to edit the script. If so, type the following at a terminal:
   
   Code:

   sudo gedit /usr/sbin/chromeos-install

   "gedit" is a GUI-based text editor that is included with most modern Linux distributions. You can substitute it for a program of your choice if desired.
6. You're done! Safely remove/eject the drive and don't forget to remove the bottom cover of your CR-48 when doing the recovery/flashing process.

Though I got things working before your last post, I really appreciate the help. I'm sure others with the same problem will definitely find your instructions to be very helpful! Thanks go out to rma4ok, too, for the great sleuthing!