[Corcoranonymous]

Hey guys,

Totally feeling crappy about what I did yesterday on my chromebox. I'm a little bit embarrassed and ashamed to be posting but feel like if I don't I'll just have an expensive paperweight. So here it goes.

I chose to install Kodibuntu (standalone) from Matt Devo. Anyways I got to the point where it wants you to back up the existing firmware in case you want to go back to default settings. Guess what? I used that usb to create another copy of chrome os recovery. It just hit me that I wiped the firmware I created and now want to go back to. Are you following?

Basically I wiped the firmware of the original chrome os and have unbuntu installed. I don't like it. I want to default to factory settings but the dev mode doesn't work and recovery of chrome os is not working. I'm wondering if anyone knows a site where I can get the original Chrome OS firmware for the chromebox cn60 (ASUS) and how to boot it from what situation I am in now? Basically when I turn the machine on it shows a screen where I can push escape to select boot options otherwise it just keeps resetting itself and goes infinitely in the reboot process.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cory

[DarrenHill]

Thread moved to the hardware section where it may get better support.

[ilovethakush]

If you have standalone setup, it is necessary to restore the stock firmware before performing a factory reset to reload ChromeOS.
In order to do this, you will need to download/run the ChromeOS device Firmware Utility script and select the appropriate option from the menu. The script will give you the option to restore from either a backup file from USB (which you created before originally flashing the custom coreboot firmware) or from a generic copy extracted from Google's recovery image. Like the Kodi EZ Setup Script, this script must be run from a Linux terminal with a full bash shell; OpenELEC users will need to boot a Linux Live USB (Ubuntu 14.04.2 64-bit works fine) from which to run the script. Just download the ISO of and write it to USB using Win32DiskImager (from Windows) or dd (Linux/MacOS).

Boot the Linux live USB, then open a terminal/shell window
Download and run the ChromeOS device Firmware Utility script using the following two commands (hit enter after typing each command):
curl -L -O https://goo.gl/1hFfO3
sudo bash 1hFfO3
Select option 3, Restore Stock Firmware
Choose whether to restore from a backup file on USB or not
If not, select your ChromeBox model so the appropriate firmware can be downloaded

[Matt Devo]

Basically I wiped the firmware of the original chrome os and have unbuntu installed. I don't like it. I want to default to factory settings but the dev mode doesn't work and recovery of chrome os is not working.

as noted by the wiki section posted above by ilovethakush, I've got you covered. The ChromeOS firmware utility script will allow you to restore the stock firmware with or without your backup, and still preserve all the unique bits from your device's firmware (serial #, MAC address, etc). Just follow the instructions on the wiki to run it from Kodibuntu. After restoring the stock firmware, reboot and reload ChromeOS using the recovery media you created when prompted.

[Corcoranonymous]

Well, I am sitting here 9 hours later after reading both of your comments. Still trouble getting Ubuntu to boot on the Chromebox. I followed this guide to get it put onto a USB: http://osxdaily.com/2015/06/05/copy-iso-...x-command/ I downloaded the ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso to put on there and formatted my USB drive to HFS+ which is what linux live USB recommends. Plugged it into the chromebox and pushed escape until I got to the boot screen to push "2" I have sat in the booting screen the entire day. I am also doing all the formatting of the USB on a MAC OSX machine.. Hope that doesn't put me under a spell. Would love more suggestions.

Photo: http://i.imgur.com/N0hR0qc.jpg

edit: thanks for the replies guys, I really appreciate you helping me out with this.

[ilovethakush]

In my experience not every Ubuntu distribution works on a chromebox, I know for a fact ubuntu-14.04.3-desktop-amd64 works, cause I used it before.

The sudo dd if= of= command should work on a Mac, I do it on linux all the time. I don't use Macs though so I don't know for sure. Maybe you can use unetbootin or something, I'm not familiar with Macs at all, so yeah.

I have NO IDEA why you're formatting your drive to HFS+ though, that's Mac only I believe, and that's probably your problem if I were to start guessing.

Take the USB to another computer and see if it boots, if it works, your problem is the USB or the distribution. If it doesn't, start all over again, format your stick to FAT, use the dd command (assuming it works on a Mac), and go. If that doesn't work, use another stick.

PS. I hope you didn't really sit in front of your monitor for 9 hours, if your USB doesn't boot in seconds, it's not going to boot.

[Matt Devo]

The proper way to create install media is to write the ISO image directly to the USB media using dd (Linux, OSX) or Win32DiskImager (Windows). This negates the need to format the drive first and avoids the kinds of issues you are having. It's also listed on the wiki

[Corcoranonymous]

you guys are complete geniuses. Where do I send the paypal money

I pulled up unetbootin on mac OSX and made sure the usb was formatted to FAT. installed from distribution --> Ubuntu --> 14.04_Live_x64. Pushed ok, ejected it and threw it in the chromebox, booted in about 1 second like you said Kush. You should've seen my face http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/u...lieved.gif

Again you guys are absolute geniuses and if you have a paypal link them please so your work can be paid for, Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!

how do we mark as solved?

[DarrenHill]

Thread marked solved.

[Matt Devo]

you guys are complete geniuses. Where do I send the paypal money

from the EZ Setup Script / thread:

[ilovethakush]

You don't have to pay me, I'm glad to help

But I definitely would appreciate it. Paypal email is same as my username.

[email protected]

[Soli]

Hey Matt. When I restored my Chromebox from standalone with no backup (a while ago), I had to go through some hoops to preserve my internal ethernet Mac and such. Is that part of the script now?

[Matt Devo]

Hey Matt. When I restored my Chromebox from standalone with no backup (a while ago), I had to go through some hoops to preserve my internal ethernet Mac and such. Is that part of the script now?

yes, but not the Kodi EZ Setup Script, it's part of my ChromeOS firmware utility script. Link in the wiki under restoring to stock.