[coreboot] Acer c720p: seabios is gone after enabling write protection

[Aaron Durbin]

On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 12:08 PM, Yannick <sevmek at free.fr> wrote:
> Le mercredi 05 février 2014 à 09:36 -0600, Aaron Durbin a écrit :
>> On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 3:04 AM, Yannick <sevmek at free.fr> wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I'm the one who tried to help Carmelo. Unfortunately, after I opened
>> > this machine (Acer c720p, french keyboard) and removed the screw to
>> > enable writing on coreboot, it now refuses to access to seabios if I
>> > press CTRL + L has I did before so many times. It just emits a sound "bip" when doing so.
>> > I've put the screw back in, it's still the same.
>> >
>> > Thus the fedora 20 I installed is now out of reach.
>> >
>> > If I wait ~30 seconds, I've a second white screen proposing to reinstall
>> > ChromeOS using USB or SD. I hope I someone here can save me the trouble
>> > of reinstalling ChromeOS, then wipe it again, then reinstall Fedora 20
>> > and reconfigure it...
>> >
>> > Process I'm trying to get it working back:
>> > 1- using a distro (ubuntu 12.04 in my case) prepare an USB stick with chromeos recovery using this script :
>> > https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1080595
>> > -> https://dl.google.com/dl/edgedl/chromeos/recovery/linux_recovery.sh
>> > 2- turn on os verification in coreboot
>> > 3- reboot and at the warning screen telling you chromeos is missing insert the USB stick.
>> > 4- I've a "unexpected error" during recovery process. :/
>> >
>> > I'm stuck...
>> >
>> >
>>
>> You need access to the chromeos-firmwareupdate script and flashrom as
>> documented here:
>>
>> http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2014-February/077158.html
>>
>> You could ask your friend to copy chromeos-firmwareupdate as well as
>> flashrom to your machine. The script is self hosting and flashrom is
>> statically linked:
>>
>> # ldd /usr/sbin/flashrom
>>         not a dynamic executable
>
> The current issue is I only have access to the white screen from
> coreboot, there is no seabios available.
>
> Thus I'm trying to reinstall Chrome OS.
>
> I find out there is a log on the USB flash drive I'm using for the
> Chrome OS recovery which might explain the failure and maybe solve my
> issue at the same time.
>
> In recovery.log, before running some diagnostics at the end of the file,
> there is this error:
>
> "Touch(/mnt/stateful_partition/.install_completed) FAILED
> Starting firmware updater
> (/tmp/install-mount-point/usr/sbin/chromeos-firmwareupdate
> --mode=recovery)
> Command: /tmp/install-mount-point/usr/sbin/chromeos-firmwareupdate
> --mode=recovery
> Starting Peppy firmware updater v4 (recovery)...
>  - Updater package: [Google_Peppy.4389.81.0 / peppy_v1.5.114-5d52788]
>  - Current system:  [RO:Google_Peppy.4389.78.0 ,
> ACT:Google_Peppy.4389.78.0 / peppy_v1.5.113-2d79820]
>  - Write protection: Hardware: ON, Software: Main=off EC=ON
> Upgrading from early-MP firmware.
>
>         RW firmware update is not compatible with current RO firmware.
>         Starting full update...
>
> ERROR: You need to first disable hardware write protection.
> ERROR: Execution failed: ./updater4.sh (error code = 4)
> Finished after 2 seconds.
> Failed
> Command: /tmp/install-mount-point/usr/sbin/chromeos-firmwareupdate
> --mode=recovery - Exit Code 4
> RO Firmware needs update, but is really marked RO. (error code: 4)
> Rolling back update due to failure installing required firmware.
> Successfully updated GPT with all settings to rollback.
> PostInstall Failed"
>
> Do you guys think the recovery fails because I do have the screw
> protecting coreboot in?

Yes. Can't you just get the two files from your friend. You wouldn't
need to recover ChromeOS.

> Should I remove this screw and try again?

You can. It will re-write the entire SPI. I'd go with the above first.

-Aaron