Re: [Libreboot] Bricked my c201

[Albin]

Hi Fatih,

I was able to run the recovery image and open the detail log with Ctrl +
Alt + F3 as you explained.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me to
reinstall ChromeOS by either letting the recovery process finish (up to
verification, where it fails like you explain) or by interrupting it by
powering down when writing to a) partition 3, b) to partition 1 or c) to
the "stateful" partition.

Maybe this is about very precise timing?  Did you try to power down at
some other points in the recovery process and that didn't work, or did
you just randomly try it at the partition 3 stage and it happened to work?

I'm glad that you were able to recover and sent this email to the list,
even if I haven't managed to reset my own computer.

Cheers,

Albin

Den 2016-06-29 kl. 03:26, skrev address@hidden:
> Hello,
> 
> I had a similar problem with bricking my c201 device yesterday. I am not
> sure if it is completely related, but the case seemed very close.
> 
> After installing archlinux on sd card, I dared to remove the internal
> 16gb /dev/mmcblk0 completely so I can migrate my installation to it. I
> had set
> 
> dev_default_boot=usb
> dev_boot_signed_only=0
> dev_boot_usb=1
> 
> which worked fine. Then I happen to disable developer mode on libreboot,
> which failed booting anyhting. I was asking myself is it not too loose
> by means of security to let any device bootable by just Ctrl+D, Ctrl+U.
> I was so wrong, I reenabled the developer mode and my booting parameters
> became:
> 
> dev_default_boot=internal
> dev_boot_signed_only=0 (which is OK)
> dev_boot_usb=0 (can't boot usb)
> 
> Shortly, I locked myself out by not having internal kernel to boot, and
> having disabled usb-booting. The first impression was I had to remove
> spi flash chip, however libreboot warning message indicated there should
> be recovery image. I prepared the recovery image with Google's guide and
> booted as recovery USB.
> 
> If you have low battery, the device shuts itself without giving reason,
> so I thought there was some problem with recovery because of it is not
> original coreboot but libreboot etc. I pluged DC power and it continued
> recovery.
> 
> At this point use Ctrl + Alt + F3 to see detailed log. If you wait long
> enough you will realize that there is updater5.sh script and it
> complains that the firmware version is not "veyron-speedy" but
> "libreboot-experimental". I tried to find the code (hoping it was free),
> but failed to do so. Nevertheless, the logs clearly indicated that the
> internal drive partitions are being created, written correctly with no
> complaint etc... But the final result is this "an unexpected error
> occurred". And it does not work obviously.
> 
> I restarted recovery. Opened the active log with Ctrl + Alt + F3, waited
> carefully until partitions are being created, and at the very moment it
> started writing partition 3 (it starts with 12nd partition and comes
> down to 1st one in reverse order) I held the power button down for ~10
> secs and cut the power. I started the laptop and there it is: running
> CrOS. I was able to return the initial setting thankfully.
> 
> So I think if you can run the recovery image, you have high probability
> of recovering your device even without opening it. Hope it helps.
> 
> -Fatih
>