I don't know what you were thinking, but you think big, you work fast, and we here at Client Services solute your raw ambition. If you don't want to dally with creating recovery media from a Chromebook itself, or maybe you can't because your plan went that spectacularly awry, you can recover Chromebooks using USB recovery media built on a PC. Here's how.
Q: "I restored my Chromebook, but now I can't use my USB flash drive or SD card anymore!!"
A: Easily solved. Use the nigh-awesome Chromebook Recovery app one more time to erase your USB flash drive or SD card so you can reformat it.
- On the working computer (not the Chromebook with the error; you weren't going to do that, were you?), install the nigh-awesome Chromebook Recovery app.
- Insert the media you'll be using as a recovery disk into a Windows or OS X computer that you have admin rights on. The thumb drive will be wiped, so backup your lolcats first. (You might want to make a few of these while you're at it)
- Open the app and follow the on-screen instructions to create the recovery media.
- Run the recovery tool and tell it which Chrome device you're building a restore image for.
- Open the Chromebook you want to recover.
- If you have anything connected to this Chromebook (such as a mouse, SD card, or external hard drive), remove it.
- Enter recovery mode: Press and hold Esc + Refresh Refresh, then press Power Power. Let go of Power, then let go of the other keys. You'll see one of these messages:
- "Chrome OS is missing or damaged. Please insert a recovery USB stick or SD card."
- "Please insert a recovery USB stick or SD card."
- Insert the recovery media you've created (SD card or USB drive).
- Follow the on-screen instructions.
Q: "I restored my Chromebook, but now I can't use my USB flash drive or SD card anymore!!"
A: Easily solved. Use the nigh-awesome Chromebook Recovery app one more time to erase your USB flash drive or SD card so you can reformat it.