usb flash drive - Installing Chromium OS on USB throws error

06
2014-04
  • Josiah

    I'm trying to install Chromium OS on my netbook via USB. I have the USB, went into Disk Utility, clicked erase. And it erased all data. Format is Fat 32.

    However, when I run the Chromium OS Image Creator, and try using the USB, it throws this error:

    "Sorry, an error occurred (failed to open the USB stick, Permission denied). Would you like to try again?"

    What can I do to fix this?

    OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion.

    • Answers
  • Erik

    Run this in the Terminal with the Image Creator app in applications:

    sudo "/Applications/Chromium OS Image Creator.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium OS Image Creator"

    This runs the 'Chromium OS Image Creator.app' with the correct permissions. Some tips:

    1. Make sure the app is in the Applications folder.
    2. Make sure the app is not running.
    3. Run the command in the Terminal app.
    4. Enter your password in Terminal if sudo asks for it.
    5. Make sure the target image file resides somewhere other than the root hard drive.
    6. Continue to use the app as normal.

    • Related Question

    USB bootable of Chromium OS
  • Questioner

    Anyone has a USB bootable of Chromium OS? When do you think it would be released? Does anyone have a review about it already?


    • Related Answers
  • Sathya

    Well, you can make one yourself:

    • Get the OS image

    Download the Hexxeh's Chromium OS build (torrent | http 1 | http 2 ).

    • Set Up Your USB Stick

    Instructions for writing your Chromium OS image onto a USB stick for

    Download Image Writer for Windows and extract the program. Launch the program, and select the image (ChromeOS-Cherry.img) and your USB drive letter from the drop down box. Click "Write". The install image will then be copied to the drive. Once it's done, close the program and you can then boot from the USB drive.

    Extract ChromeOS-Cherry.img and run the following command in the same directory as the file, where X is the device name of your USB drive.

    sudo dd if=ChromeOS-Cherry.img of=/dev/X bs=4M

    Once the command finishes, you can then boot from the USB drive.

    Firstly, unmount the drive you want to install Chromium OS to. Place the downloaded file onto your desktop. Open System Profiler, click USB on the list at the side and then select the entry that represents your USB disk. Now look for the BSD Name column. Remember what is written here. In my case, it is disk1, but in yours it may be different. Take care here as if you get it wrong, it could seriously mess things up. Once you have this, open up Terminal and type the following commands.

    cd Desktop 
tar -zxvf ChromeOS-Cherry.tar.gz

    For the next command, replace X with the name of the disk you found earlier, ie disk1.

    sudo dd if=ChromeOS-Cherry.img of=/dev/X bs=4m

    This command will ask you to enter your password (the same one you enter when installing software for example), type it in and press enter. This command will take a while to run, about 20 minutes for me, and then will give you your shell prompt back once it has finished. Once it has, you can remove your USB drive and boot from it (but not on your Mac because I'll tell you now that won't work, yes I tried it)

    And then, boot from USB!

    NOTE: The username and password are both facepunch for this build.

  • John T

    Already been done my friend :)

    In a nutshell:

    • Grab the download off the above link, it includes everything you need
    • Unzip the Chromium OS archive then use Image Writer to write chrome_os.img to your empty USB drive (back up everything on the USB first, it will be overwritten)
    • Configure your computer to boot from USB
    • Leave the drive plugged in while you boot and cross your fingers!

    Remember, the OS is in the early stages of development, not all hardware will work 100%.