Bricked my Chromebox?

mikets · May 3, 2017 at 6:09 AM

Hi there,

I tried migrating from OpenELEC to LibreELEC on my Asus Chromebox. I watched the video, which was pretty straightforward. I downloaded the file from the Downloads page under "Manual Update / Migration from OpenELEC (.tar)", and dropped that into the Update folder of the Chromebox. So far, so good.

When I rebooted, I got the attached screen. I can't seem to reboot, to get into Developer mode. I wonder if the download file was actually the right one, as the file name seems to refer to Raspberry Pi2.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I proceed from here? Or have I bricked my Chromebox?

Thanks,
Mike

**chewitt** · May 3, 2017 at 7:14 AM Official Post

OE's update process has no protection against "wrong image" updates (unlike LE which does) so it's blindly applied the RPi2 .tar file to the boot partition and this has overwritten the SYSTEM file. The box still half-boots because RPi devices use a kernel.img file not 'KERNEL' so the original KERNEL file is still present and being used. Half-booting doesn't help though

If you took a backup (and moved it off-box) before updating the fastest option is to create a new installer USB using our USB/SD creator app and then clean install LE on the box. Once it's up/running you can restore the backup.

If you did not take a backup you need to boot the box from an LE install USB or Ubuntu "Live" USB; both can be run in Live mode. LE boots/runs and can give SSH console access to run some terminal commands. Ubuntu gives you a full desktop environment. Basically you need to mount the first partition on the internal HDD and overwrite the KERNEL and SYSTEM files there with new ones extracted from the LE 8.0.1 update .tar file, then reboot and you should be running LE.

NB: On the download page there is a drop list (above the pi logo) and if you click this, you'll see an option for Generic x86_64 hardware. Click that and the page links change to show the Generic image update files. If you don't click it.. you're looking at RPi2 links.

mikets · May 3, 2017 at 7:16 AM

Quote from chewitt

OE's update process has no protection against "wrong image" updates (unlike LE which does) so it's blindly applied the RPi2 .tar file to the boot partition and this has overwritten the SYSTEM file. The box still half-boots because RPi devices use a kernel.img file not 'KERNEL' so the original KERNEL file is still present and being used. Half-booting doesn't help though

If you took a backup (and moved it off-box) before updating the fastest option is to create a new installer USB using our USB/SD creator app and then clean install LE on the box. Once it's up/running you can restore the backup.

If you did not take a backup you need to boot the box from an LE install USB or Ubuntu "Live" USB; both can be run in Live mode. LE boots/runs and can give SSH console access to run some terminal commands. Ubuntu gives you a full desktop environment. Basically you need to mount the first partition on the internal HDD and overwrite the KERNEL and SYSTEM files there with new ones extracted from the LE 8.0.1 update .tar file, then reboot and you should be running LE.

NB: On the download page there is a drop list (above the pi logo) and if you click this, you'll see an option for Generic x86_64 hardware. Click that and the page links change to show the Generic image update files. If you don't click it.. you're looking at RPi2 links.

Thanks Chewitt, much appreciated. I'll give this a go. Cheers.

mikets · May 4, 2017 at 12:52 AM

All fixed, and now running on LE. Thanks again for your help - I'm in the good books at home again ...