April 10, 2011

How to format / wipeout Chrome OS (CR-48)

Last week, I was playing with different settings for Chrome OS Laptop given by Google (also called CR 48). While playing with various settings, I changed the UI language from English US to Hindi (Indian Language).  At the time of change, it worked correctly and I could browse through internet pages. But after I restart the laptop, the machine seem to hang. What I mean by hang is Chrome browser was responding (UI) but if I try to open any page (including any internet page or even settings or about page from browser wrench icon), So, I couldn’t even restore the UI language to English. I tried to restart the machine couple of times in hope that it will recover but it did not.

So, I thought I will need to “format” the machine and start from scratch. Because all the data lives in the cloud (including browser and OS settings), I was less worried about the data (which was actually good and big relief!)

I started searching for resources on how to format the machine and re-install the OS again! I could not find any useful information but after reading a lot of information, I found this page on Google Chrome OS help. Tried the instructions and they worked. I’ve copied the instructions (for windows platform) here as well.

 

  1. Click this link to download the image: https://dl.google.com/dl/chromeos/recovery/cr48-beta-recovery
  2. Extract the .bin file from the .zip you just downloaded (e.g. chromeos__x86-mario_recovery_beta-channel_mp.bin).
  3. Download a Windows image writer tool (e.g. Image Writer for Windows Note - when using this tool you may have to manually rename the image file to end in '.img' )
  4. Follow the instructions in the image writer tool and choose the download binary file (e.g. chromeos__x86-mario_recovery_beta-channel_mp.img ) to burn to a USB disk.

Once you have the USB disk ready, plug it into Chrome OS laptop and cold boot the machine. It will wipe out everything from the machine and re-install the Chrome OS.