How To Install Chrome OS Into Hard disk Alongside Your Existing Operating System.

Almost all of you know that, the Chrome OS is based on Linux and is initially intended for secondary devices like netbooks, not for a user's primary PC.It will run with full features only on specifically designed hardware.It is currently in Alpha (not Beta) and Known as Chromium OS.Stable release might be publicly available during the second half of 2010.

At this time, Chrome OS has very limited hardware support and very poor performance.Currently it is not available to install directly into hard disk and is almost wastage of time,if you spent more time to install Chrome OS inside your computer hard disk explicitly.

After all, if you want to install it into your computer hard disk, then please mention in comments, Why do you want to install Chrome OS into your Hard disk …explicitly???

You may install Chrome OS in to hard disk (explicitly) by two way:-

• Install Chrome OS into Entire hard disk.
• Install Chrome OS alongside your existing OS.

In both cases, first you have to install Chrome OS into USB pen drive.After that you may install into hard disk.

• To install Chrome OS into  Entire Hard disk follow these instructions:

This method is useful, if you have a computer for test purpose.

***( Note:it will erase all previous data on your hard disk )

1. Install Chrome OS in to USB Pen Drive.
2. Boot from Pen drive and Log on to Chrome OS.
3. Press Ctrl+Alt+T.
4. Type  /usr/sbin/chromeos-install  and press Enter.
5. Enter the Root password ( facepunch )
6. Follow prompts.
7. Unplug the USB Pen drive and reboot the Computer.
8. Done.

• To install Chrome OS alongside your existing OS, follow these instructions:

This is actually not a installation, it is a trick by which you may get a option for boot in Chrome OS from your hard disk, in your multiboot  menu with your existing operating systems.

When you install this Chrome OS in your usb pen drive, it will create  two partitions on your pen drive. One of them is labelled as  C-ROOT (~700MB) and the other is labelled as  C-STATE (~250MB). Both the partitions are in Ext3 file system, which are visible only in linux.But this trick will work on both Linux as well as on Windows.

The outline for the installation process is as follows:

1. Install the ChromiumOS  to USB pen drive.
2. Create two new partitions on your hard disk of size having almost equal to the partitions present on your pen drive. That is one of the partition of  size ~700MB and other of ~250MB. (it can be accomplish by Disk management in Windows and by GParted or fdisk in Linux).
3. Copy partitions from your USB pen drive to your newly created partitions of hard disk drive, one by one. (it can be accomplish by dd for windows or linux live cd in Windows and by dd command in Linux).
4. Update GRUB configuration for adding the entry for Chrome OS in multiboot menu. (it can be accomplish by GRUB4DOS or EasyBCD in Windows and by update-grub command or edit GRUB menu in Linux).

The whole process is time consuming and also You could lose all of your data on your computer during this process due to an mistake in this guide.I think that no one will be interested to do this.Therefore i don’t explain all the process in detailed.But if you are interested and unable to do, then i may explain all the process in detail.

Attach Your Own Photo And Name With USB Pen Drives, CD/DVD Drives Or Hard Disk Drives

Here i will show you how can you use your own photo and name instead of the default icon and name of any drive respectively.

For this you have an image of your own or any other that you want to use instead of icon having extension .ico or .bmp. if not then use Paint in windows or convert with any software.

Suppose your image is your-image.bmp.

Now open the Notepad and write the following:

[autorun]

icon=your-image.bmp

label=your-name

And save the file as name as autorun.inf.

Now copy and paste (or write in the case of CD/DVD drive) these two files in the Drive (USB,  Hard Disk) in which you want want to attach your image and name and remount the Volume or drive.That is in the case of USB Drive or CD/DVD Drive reinsert your USB device or CD/DVD.In case of Hard Disk Drive restart your computer.Done.

Example:

Currently my Pen Drive name is puru(H:).Now i copy and paste the AUTORUN.INF and Puru.bmp in my USB Pen drive.Shown in figure.

I also copy and paste the same file in my Hard disk drive (D:). I have to restart my computer because drive (D:) need to remount.After the restart shown in figure.

Now if you want to hide the autorun.inf and your-image.bmp.So that it can’t be seen by others.Then do the following:

1. Open command prompt (cmd.exe).
2. Type the Drive Letter in side which the autorun.inf is present. (eg.  H: ) then press Enter.
3. Type  ATTRIB AUTORUN.INF +S +H  and press Enter.
4. Type  ATTRIB YOUR-IMAGE.BMP +S +H  and press Enter.
5. Type  EXIT  and press Enter.

Example:

In the above Example  it is like this,

In the case of CD/DVD write these files after the system(S) and Hidden(H)  attributes are added.

How To Creat Autorun.inf For USB Pendrive Or CD/DVD Drive

An autorun.inf file is basically a text file that can be used by the AutoRun and AutoPlay components of Microsoft Windows Operating systems. It’s can be associated with any of the drives (USB drive, CD/DVD drive or Hard Disk drive volume) For the file to be in action, it must be located in the root directory of a volume.

The Autorun.inf file defines the following:

The application or process that will automatically run when a CD/DVD, USB disk or Volume is mounted.

 

The icon that will represent your CD/DVD, USB disk or any Hard disk Volume when the drive is viewed with My Computer or Explorer.

 

Menu commands displayed when the user right-clicks the CD/DVD, USB disk or Volume icon from My Computer or Explorer.

A simple Autorun.inf file have the following format :

[autorun] 
open=autorun.exe 
icon=autorun.ico

Suppose you have a setup.exe file in your USB Pen drive and you want to run this application automatically  when you insert your Pen drive in any computer.For this you have to create an autorun.inf file in root directory of your pendrive.

1. Open Notepad.
2. Write,

[autorun] 
open=setup.exe

       3. Save the file as autorun.inf in the root directory of your Pendrive in which the  setup.exe file is present.

        4. Now remove your Pendrive and again insert in to computer you will see the application setup.exe Executed automatically.  

Note:

By default, the system looks for the file in the root directory of the inserted disk. If you want to access a file located in a specific folder or subdirectory, specify a path relative to the root.

 

As Windows has a case-insensitive view of filenames, the autorun.inf file can be stored as AutoRun.Inf or autoRun.inF or any other case combination.

If you want to assign an icon to your Pen drive and also a name for your pen drive then just write two line more after the line open=setup.exe.

icon=youricon.icon

label=yourlabel

Where youricon.icon is the name of your icon file. Valid file types containing icons include .ICO, .BMP and also .DLL and .EXE can contain the icons. If the file includes more than one icon, by default, the second icon in the files icon resource will be displayed. You can write any name instead of yourlabel for your pen drive.

For CD/DVD drive you have to write this autorun.inf file in your CD/DVD.

Free Upload, Share and Download Up TO 1GB Of Any File Types Including Zip In Google Docs.

On January 12, 2010 Google announce that,

over the next few weeks we will be rolling out the ability to upload, store and organize any type of file in Google Docs. With this change, you'll be able to upload and access your files from any computer -- all you need is an Internet connection.

Instead of emailing files to yourself, which is particularly difficult with large files, you can upload to Google Docs any file up to 250 MB. You'll have 1 GB of free storage for files you don't convert into one of the Google Docs formats (i.e. Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations), and if you need more space, you can buy additional storage for $0.25 per GB per year. This makes it easy to backup more of your key files online, from large graphics and raw photos to unedited home videos taken on your smartphone. You might even be able to replace the USB drive you reserved for those files that are too big to send over email.

Combined with shared folders, you can store, organize, and collaborate on files more easily using Google Docs. For example, if you are in a club or PTA working on large graphic files for posters or a newsletter, you can upload them to a shared folder for collaborators to view, download, and print.

You can also search for document files you've uploaded or that have been shared with you just like you do with your Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs. And you'll be able to view many common document file types with the Google Docs viewer.

This is a great news for all and also I am Waiting anxiously for this.Just not because it’s gave free 1GB storage, because this storage is given by Google.

Although there are number of alternative are available for free online storage for documents and files in which the Skydrive is the most famous.It’s gave 25GB for storage instead of 1GB but the main problem is that it have maximum limit for each file size is 50MB instead of 250MB in Google Docs and also the Upload and Download speed is very slow, which make it’s unusable.I hope that the upload and download speed is also batter than others in Google Docs, because it is provided by Google.

  Now you have to wait until this feature will be enabled for your account over the next couple of weeks — look for the bubble notification when you sign in to Google Docs. If you don’t have an account in Google Docs then go to Google Docs and Login with your Google account.

Install New Chrome OS with Wifi And Full Extension Support.

I already showed you how to install Chrome OS in Virtual box and in USB Pen drive in previous articles.They have larger startup delay on Broadcom wifi adapters and also some time having freezing problem.

Now the new update build by Hexxeh is named as Chromium OS Zero and it boasts speed improvements, automatic delivery of system updates, a reduction in the startup delay on Broadcom wifi adapters, customized bootsplash graphic. The new Chrome OS  now has full extension support and bookmark sync, which makes it easy to experiment.
Download the Latest build from here.

Direct download from here  (203 MB). (pre scanned)

Torrent download from here  (254 MB).

After the download is completed Extract the downloaded file by WinZip or WinRAR   or any other archive Extractor.Save the file ChromeOS-Zero.img.

Now you can install this Chrome OS in two way. In USB Pen drive or In Virtual Machine  (or you may also install in to Hard disk). Here in both cases, you can use the same file (.img) downloaded above or download .vmdk in case of installing in virtual box or VMware.

1.  Install in USB Pen drive.

If you are using windows then follow these Instructions for installing Chromium OS to USB:
Download Image Writer for Windows (5 MB) and extract the downloaded file.Launch the program, by double clicking on file Win32DiskImager.exe (In Vista and Windows7 you have to run as Administrator).
Now in this window select the image (ChromeOS-Zero.img) and your USB drive letter from the drop down box.
Click Write. The install image will then be copied to the drive.

Note: The USB Pendrive/Flashdrive will be reformatted to fit the Image
Once it's done, close the program and you can then boot from the USB drive.

If you are using Ubuntu then follow these Instructions for installing Chromium OS to USB:
First you need to install USB Image Writer using the following command in Terminal.

                                 sudo apt-get install usb-imagewriter

Wait until usb-imagewriter is installed.After the installation is completed Lunch it, you will find it under Applications > Accessories > Image Writer.
Then simply select the ChromeOS-Zero.img under “Write image”, select your USB drive, and click on the Write on device button.

If you are using Other Linux (also work in ubuntu) then follow this Instructions for installing Chromium OS to USB:
Extract ChromeOS-Zero.img and run the following command in the same directory as the file, where Z is the device name (not the partition name) of your USB drive.

                              sudo dd if=ChromeOS-Zero.img of=/dev/Z bs=4M

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

NOTE:After you completed the above steps, Just insert the Pen Drive in the computer (must have a working Internet connection) in which you want to Boot Chrome OS from USB Pen Drive, then restart the computer and modify the BIOS settings if needed (enter in to the BIOS setting by pressing the appropriate key (generally ‘F2’ or ‘Del’ or ‘F10’) at the instant  just before Computer will Boot  and change the Boot order and set USB Device at #1 (highest priority).Then save and exit).

If your Pen Drive become  smaller than it was, after trying this out then Just Format your Pen Drive using  the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool ( Download from here  96KB ). Alternatively use Disk Management in Windows or fdisk in Linux.

2.  Install in Virtual Machine.

To install Chrome OS in Virtual Machine, you have to use any one of the Virtual box, VMware or other virtualization software which support Linux installation in Virtual Machine.The Virtual box ( developed by Sun Microsystems) is recommended because it is a open source (free) software  and also having good performance, available for Windows as well as for Linux.

For installing in Virtual box:

First download and install Virtual box developed by Sun Microsystems from here.

Now you have to download the .vmdk image of Chrome OS from here.Alternatively if you are already downloaded the .img image of chrome OS then you can convert it in to .vdi format and use this .vdi file in stead of .vmdk file.For converting-

• Open the command prompt,
• Go to the directory where you saved your downloaded and Extracted .img file (e.g. c:\users\you\downloads\)
• Type path=c:\program files\sun\virtualbox\  and press enter (*note: your path may differ, this is the path where virtual box is installed).
• Type vboxmanage convertdd ChromeOS-Zero.img ChromeOS-Zero.vdi  and press enter
• Wait until it’s completed.

Once you've got the .vdi file created, you simply need to create a new virtul machine in Virtualbox. During the creation process, choose Linux/Ubuntu for the OS type, select use existing hard drive image when prompted, and add your ChromeOS-Zero.vdi or ChromeOS-Zero.vmdk file.
If you are facing any problems during this then see step-by-step instructions from here.

Note: You must have a working Internet connection for using the Chrome OS. If you are gating any errors related to connection, check out your Internet connection and Restart your Virtual Machine.

Post installation important notes:

1.   Use Google account User name and Password for login in to Chrome OS, that is your Gmail User name and Password.If you don’t have a Google account then create one.

2.   Default Root username and password for Chrome OS:

Default Root Username: facepunch

Default Root Password: facepunch

3.   Press F8 to see the keyboard map (shortcuts) and each function when the Chrome OS is running.

4.   Press Ctrl+Alt+T to bring up the root shell (Terminal) when the Chrome OS is running.