Reviews & Comments of Chromebook Recovery Utility chrome extension

cant create recovery media using a linux machine

Absolutely useless! Started by asking me to select a chromebook to recover, even though I downloaded this to create installation media for an old laptop. This is utter garbage and a total waste of time!

I like this lite weight OS

The tool does a good job making a bootable USB with Chrome OS for the specific device you need it for or for Google Chrome FlexOS which can install Chrome OS on a Windows device. I dislike that it opens a ton of explorer windows and I have to sometimes wipe my USBs for them to work properly again. It is a lot of hassle when that happens. Maybe google can work harder to make it better but we will see.

guys its viirus dont dolwoad

I tried using this to setup a USB drive so I could install Chrome on my old HP laptop. Of course the thing downloads the files but doesn't write to the drive. Totally worthless. Would it have been too much for Google to just give us a site to download an ISO or some other kind of media without having to go though this hassle?

Keeps saying error when verifying

I have tried to create a recovery drive several times and each time it fails at 24% download. This utility just doesn't work!

Okay, why do I have to use windows? I ditched every old windows device for my 1500.00 samsung Chromebook. I went and used borrowed a windows device with a chrome browser only to find that the utility doesn't work on many windows computer for downloading the extension.

omg worked so perfectly when dualbooting with a windows machine

Failed to complete writing the iso file to the USB drive.

my usb act like a trojan

Thanks to Google. I loved it.

It worked, but dont use it on anything other than chrome. I tried on opera gx and it gave me 2 usb options i have never seen before and dont have plugged in to my pc and not the usb i was actually using.

absolutely hate it the cog button doesnt work and u gotta click the bottom of it to open the context menu but it doesnt matter anyway because you cant browse local files or anything the buttons do nothing except close the context menu

I don't know how well this utility works regarding recovering your Chromebook, but this is a great tool for formatting your USB stick. I've worked with many USB drives that Windows can't format (using disk manager, diskpart, etc.), but this utility will wipe it clean and Windows will recognize the device. (Usually the drives were used by or corrupted by failed linux installs).

doesn't erase existing OS image/partions currently on disk after is says "completed" Also gives an error everytime i try and back up and create new. Doesn't work.

I used a 32GB flash disk. After making it bootable, it turned into a 64MB flash disk and the installation was giving an error. So formatted it to re-do the whole process. Now it warns that the flash disk is only 64MB (and not 32GB). Seriously!!!!!!!

So far not working. Keeps turning my USB into like 10+ partitions every time no matter what usb I use.

Thank god for this! I was able to sh1m my chromebook and now we chillin. Best extension here

it did work but i had to switch a few browsers to actually get it to work and when it did work it bombarded me with like 30 drives and opened up 30 file explorers and i thought this was a virus. my advice make it work on more than 1 browser and make it not seem like a virus

worked for me!

It does not support Linux. So if you want to recover your Chromebook, unfortunately, you need a Windows or perhaps Mac.

didn't work for me

Perfect - Perfect - Perfect

doesn't work with me

Every time after download is finished, It start a verification and show an error that "The file is Invalid, Please try again. I tried several times with different USB sticks but same issue pops up. Whats wrong with it.

it worked for a while but is stuck at 0% writing

shimmer moment

I love it! Especially for sh1mmer :)

5 stars! Enabled me to unenroll my chromebook and all for free! Thanks google & SH1MMER!

Doesn't work on Linux.

Perfect for installing sh1mmer and removing your enterprise enrollment! THANKS GOOGLE FOR MESSING THIS UP SO BADLY

deleted all my files and didnt recover my chromebook, POS

it aint work

it could not be installed and says verification failed i tried alot of time but it said nope not gon let u do it

This is most likely a unique issue, but this cannot erase recovery media. One flashed, it's on your drive permanently.

wont write the chrome os just stuck at 0%

Used Jan 1 2023, worked flawlessly on my TrashCan Pro (Late 2013) running macOS Monterey and Brave browser. External 16GB Toshiba thumb drive was instantly detected. One-third of the way through I had to enter an admin passphrase to allow write-access to external media. Took about 10 minutes from there to create the recovery image. Finished reading documentation for next steps while I waited.

Did not work. It refused to write to my USB stick while there was nothing wrong with this USB stick.

For those having problems creating the USB recovery drive with this extension, you may have browser configuration issues that are forbidding the extension from accessing your USB. Removing the policies "DefaultWebUsbGuardSetting" or "WebUsbBlockedForUrls" and allow both "USB devices" and "HID devices" at "Settings, Privacy and Security, Additional Permissions" may allow you to create the USB recovery drive where it did not before. Wiping these options (and reloading policies) allowed me to create the USB drive. Google, if you're reading this, please consider warning the user if an active policy will prevent the extension from working.

Pretty good for 3100 fixes.

Did not work- would not allow me to click 'start' !!

Tried creating Chrome Flex on a brand new and formatted 128GB drive. Says it hasn't got enough space on the external drive..... Ran Chrome in admin mode and it works perfectly. I'm running Windows 11 on a Dell laptop

Hung writing to USB (0%) so I went out and bought a different one - same issue - another £10 wasted. Tried on a different PC - wrote to same USB no problem. Finally, couldn't install to my old netbook as it has i686 CPU which isn't supported.

Comes up with different fault codes. Needs more memory. Needs admin passwd. All this after several sets of multi-GB download. Didnt work in the end

Neverware's CloudReady turned to rubbish since Google acquired them.

"Unknown error: CHROMEOS_IMAGE_BURNER_ERROR.Please try again." Months ago it successfully burned Chrome OS Flex image onto USB flash drive. Then recently I tried to burn onto new USB Flash drive and got the above message. Tried a other USB flash drives with the same error. Don't know what to do. Great tool though when it worked for me.

I'm pretty sure that its permissions are for collecting data, and it failed to boot

Not available for ubuntu.

Worked flawlessly on my old HP laptop. Scroll bar needs to be larger, its hard to find at times.

This worked perfectly for my situation: Acer Chromebook crashed, needed OS reset, installed this xtension on my Windows 10 HP Pavilion. I plugged in a >8GB thumb drive on the Pavilion laptop and ran the extension. It asked me for the Chromebook model number, which I got from the Chromebook error screen. It found that model and it wrote to the thumb drive. Then I plugged the thumb drive into the Chromebook, pressed ESC-Refresh-Power combo, it rebooted off the thumb drive and loaded the chrome OS. Runs perfectly. Very happy with this extension.

cant click on Get Started to even download it, from all the other reviews this is trash

Quite stupid that you can't literally run this on a Linux Desktop when this was based on Linux.

used it to download chrome os flex, only to remember that theres no play store support, lets see if someone can use this to download regular chrome os

literally does not work!! I've tried downloading this multiple times and each time it partitions my flashdrive. I cannot fix my chromebook now. how is google going to nuke my chromebook and then nuke the "fix" for it??? pathetic. what a waste.

Linux is unsupported and the workarounds in the comments seem to have been removed. The developer contact email address does not exist and just bounces. All I need is to download an image for ChromeOS Flex. Whatever this tool is is over complicating the process, leaving users out in the cold for no good reason.

only the option to add or remove extension no launch!!!

This worked perfectly. My chromebook was recovered in 10 minutes.

Made a bootable Usb from this extension and the installation doesn't starts.

Just doesn't work, I've tried it with administrator mode set and everything. What a joke!

Linux unsupported. What a crock.

I had issue on multiple machines using this utility. Having it work on the third, I believe the issue is that this does not work on windows 11. I had used diskpart to format my usb to fat32, which is not an option in windows 11, but still it did not create the recovery media. I was able to simply run the extension as intended on the windows 10 machine.

Surprised that chrome has such useless stuff...

didnt work on linux

worst experience

Worked fine. Can be confusing when it creates a ton of partitions on your USB but after that happens, eject and try recovering your chrome book. After it's recovered use the tool again and in setting click 'erase recovery media'. Once that's done open your file manager and right click on the USB drive and format it to it's default settings and you're good to go.

Make a support for linux please.

Nice

This tool is extremely slow and agonizing to use. I've been waiting SIX HOURS to install Chrome OS Flex, whereas the old CloudReady USB tool around 1 hour at most.

works just fine don't use opera or other browsers beside chrome itself.If your model does not appear on it then just use the chrome book os flex as it is better to do.

Doesn't show my USB drive. Just shows 2 drives which don't even exist.

not working at all it doesnt even say launch app and i turned it on and off and on again

It partitioned my drive into 20 different drives new its ruined

Doesn't support linux.

It's extremely buggy and doesn't show the USB stick if you're on another browser (figured this out the hard way since all my computers use Opera or Opera GX). If it's showing the wrong USBs (For me they showed Kingston 7.3 Gb and Sandisk 3 gb on every computer for some reason), try to go to google chrome instead of another browser.

dunnojustin77's community fixes 9/21/2022 Update------ -------------------------------------------------------------- Fix 1: Enter the EXACT model name. If you don't, the process will download infinitely. Try getting the extension to say: "Found an exact match" and it will go through properly. If it only says "found a match" I tend to have that infinite loop downloading. Take a picture of the model number in the recovery screen by pressing esc + refresh + power for the exact model number. An example of full model number (HP G8ee) BARLA C3B-A4L-E3Q-N2M-I2Q-C2Q-A9I the spacing and dashes are important. -------------------------------- Fix 2: Be sure to first close chrome then Run it as Administrator via the desktop shortcut (right click). This prevents a crash before writing where a Windows Escalation Prompt usually appears. If it still freezes on writing, close all instances of chrome and relaunch Chrome as Administrator. ----------------- Fix 3: USB not recognized on recovery screen - ensure the recovery extension downloaded and wrote all the way until the done screen then try different USB ports on the Chromebook if it doesn't recover initially. Fix 4: Don't switch windows or allow lock screen whilst USB is downloading/writing. Babysit the process to ensure nothing wrong happens with UAC (Chrome should already be launched in Administrator). Fix 5: If you want to use your USB after using the extension, Format the USB with the extension via "erase recovery media" to remove the weird partitions. Google, it's been over one year and no meaningful changes have been pushed for the above issues... Googleplzfix! 1 star from original 2 in review -------------------- Any more potential fixes, please reply below for other people to use. I'll update my fixes if possible. Someone please test unplugging USB during Verification process to save people time (it takes 5 mins to verify).

Works on windows 7!!!! Does not work on windows 10, because of some new update. Had to dig my laptop from under my bed.

For the past few weeks it starts at step 3 when trying to create a drive and never actually writes the image to the drive.

not working. time wasting

Absolute Garbage! all this does is open Dev Mode... It will not load the usb boot.... FIX IT GOOGLE!!

Extension cannot be opened! Chrome OS Flex on MBP 9,2 (mid 2012)

Doesn't work read reviews before trying

Clicking this extension doesn't do anything at all.

If its crashing at the end just run chrome as administrator....

ChromeOS Flex worked on both Dell computers I flashed it to. I just wish you can grab a ChromeOS Flex ISO you can use in a virtual machine.

I'm trying to create an ISO file to boot into a VM and this utility doesn't allow for that. Why oh why Google do you make it virtually impossible to run ChromeOS as a VM? I have tried all kinds of approaches based on the top search results and all of them I've tried so far don't work. Very frustrating.

Don't work on linux, yet built on linux

it simply wont work, the links will not work

Hello, I have been using USB for booting Linux sentes Window ME, all kinds of loading programs, But I haft to say! Hands Down this Chrome Recovery Utility is the Best, Fastest and Easiest way Every!!!! The Best thing about this Utility, Is CHROME OS and CHROME OS FLEX Is the Best OS !!!!! When Windows installs, it makes changes to the DOS, Windows LOCK_UP the DOS, To install Chrome OS Flex in Laptops and PCs, Go in to the DOS and reset the default then Save, Go in to the Boot Sequence in the DOS make sure the Hard Drive is #1 USB #2 then save, at Reboot go to the One Time Boot Menu, Highlight or check USB then Enter, Boot in to the Installer of the OS you are Installing, the Installer will set the Hard Drive, After install and all the Update, Go in the tha DOS Boot Sequence Hard Drive (big one) #1 if you have CD #2, Use the One Time Boot Menu to Boot from USB and Run OS from your USB. Play around with all the different Linux OS, I like Zorin Core 16 or Lite 16. I hope this Helps someone and to Enjoy the Chrome OS and Flex as much as I do ! A Big Thanks To Google !!!!!!! Google Chrome OS Is The Best-er-est-ing-ion-s !!!!!

I gave it 1 star because it does not recognize external hard drives, but only USB sticks, even though they both can be booted.

LINUX USERS!!! Use GNOME Disk Utility to write the image to the flash drive, and download the recovery images from a trusted mirror.

When you use this program, it does make 12 partitions on your USB drive. Windows will not recognize the USB after that. QUICK EASY way to fix this is to use a free partition manager. Delete the partitions on the drive, reformat. USB works again. This program doesn't damage your USB drive.

3 operating systems, different USB drives, NONE, could build a Chromeos Flex with this piece of... software.

Worked really well for me. People are claiming that this ruined their flash drives, but there's an option under the settings icon to "erase recovery media". My only problem is that this extension does not support ISO files.

The utility used to work before. Like others I've tried multiple times, with different computers, it get's stuck on creating a recovery or just disappears by itself after unpacking.

I've tried this on 3 usb's. Last one is a brand new Kingston 32Gb USB 3.2 new been usedon Window 10 64 Bit Dell XPS laptop. Plugged in the USB downloads, verifies unpacks and I approved writing to device, writes 100% and then it wants to verify then writing, then it fails. Now I have 2 USB devices in the file manager (G: + H:) where before I started I just had one. Rubbish don't even start trying to use use this. Waste of time.

It says "Unable to unzip file. Please check if your device has enough space and try again" but my usb is 32gb so it's not a size problem

It work perfect!

doesn't work

Utility is unable to properly format a USB memory stick. Despite years of critical reviews regarding this issue, Google refuses to correct the problem. Save yourself alot of hassle. Format the memory stick in FAT32 format FIRST - process works smoothly. If you didn't do that on the front-end, you will need a utility to delete all the partitions on the USB memory stick and start all over. For Windows users, EaseUS Partition Wizard (free) makes this a breeze (unlike built-in Disk Management tool which doesn't work for me).

I know a lot of people were tricked by this and had their usb drives completely destroyed, I have a solution that makes your USB drive have a working file system, and deletes all the partitions. Download rufus from rufus.ie, once it downloads open it. then in the boot selection click "Non bootable." after that click start. Once it finishes your usb wont be drive D (or whatever you had before), in my case it was drive N, but the usb works and functions fine now!

Can't make a bootable USB from Linux. Garbage

Tried to create the recovery USB drive. It errors everytime I tried. When you try to remove it from the flash drive, it creates 20+ partitions that are not removeable. Crashes the PC you are using and DESTROYS the USB drive!!!!!

so i just have a qesustion so when i download a iso file and use tghe recory tool will still be able to use the chormebook i don"t care if it reset the chromebook will be able to use it my chromebook after the bootable iso flie that i download onto a usb

I tried several times and it never gets passed the writing stage.

Impossible to get the thing to download properly

no linux support???

Like a couple of others, I can't get past the writing stage. All goes well until it asks to makes changes to my hard drive, then if I click No, it ends. If I click Yes, it goes to Writing, then sits at 0%. I first tried on the Windows notebook I want to convert, than on my Windows PC, which I will need to convert. Same results.

I was discouraged by the negative reviews but this worked as expected to recover my Acer Spin 713 Chromebook on 7/23/2022. Initially I had issues because I was trying to create the recovery stick on a working Dell Chromebook that did not have enough onboard memory. So I was getting the message that said "failed to unpack zip." My second attempt was to install the extension on a Chrome browser on a Windows PC that had 8GB ram. It created the stick perfectly and the stick worked perfectly to recover the Acer Chromebook. Once you create the USB stick, just save it for you ever need it again. And if you have local files on your Chromebook, back them up periodically. This is an extension for recovering your factory OS, and the image that it creates is hardware (make and model) specific. For that purpose it works as described. Make sure you know your full model number.

Lenovo Thinkpad T430 though supported does not appear in the dropdown of models to create recovery media . Does the extension get updated periodically ?

Works Great! Thanks!

It ruined 2 flash drives after failing to write the image to the disk

What a great Operating System? My ten old HP Windows computer took about 15 minutes to even start and I installed chrome OS flex on it. Now it's working like a horse. It is extremely fast. As well as that, I am a Google fan and uses Google tools only (I hate Windows, but I had to buy a Windows computer because Chromebooks are not available in my country). However, I experienced some issues like occasional restarts. But that didn't happen often and it happened about once a week. And some updates affected my device like a virus, but I could recover my laptop by doing a 'Power wash'. All in all, I love this new OS.

Been running the original Neverware CloudReady for a few years and decided I'd "upgrade". Fails at 2-3% every time - "Download interrupted. Please check your network connection and try again". I've got a fibre connection that has no issues on any other service. Just offer an iso image, and then anyone can install from that.

Worked quickly and easily as intended; created a boot drive for Chrome OS Flex. Can't help but think that any difficulty others are having is definitely due to User Error or another program on their computer such as a Anti-malware/Anti-virus interference.

Garbage. Won't write to USB drive.

Doesn't have chrome os flex dev-unstable anymore. PLS add back I'm trying to install it on low end old pc :/

Not working, it said with every USB: Unable to write to the selected USB flash drive or SD card. Your device's write permissions may be disabled, or your domain administration may have disabled writing to USB storage. evertything open to wirte on my devices. shi**y extension.

No Linux support... sad.

So far on 7/16/2022 This will not install the newly released Chrome OS Flex stable nor dev version. It will go thru everything except install onto USB Device.

not working

it does not work it does not open

I've tried flashing Chrome OS Flex onto a 16gb SanDisk usb 6 times and on every occasion I make it ~40% into stage 3 (unzipping) before receiving the following error message "Unable to unzip file. Please check if your device has enough space and try again."

Linux support, please

This extension has too many negative reviews. Ignore any review dated prior to June 23, 2022. That's when this extension was last updated. Also read the Chromebook recovery instructions found here: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/6002417 Chrome OS Flex specific instructions can be found here: https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11552529 I just installed the extension today (15July2022) and it worked perfectly to create a Chrome OS Flex installation USB drive. I used Chrome Version 103.0.5060.114 on Windows 10 build 21H1, logged in as an administrator. After creating the drive, I booted from it and tested it. Yes, it is slow running on the USB drive. And yes, it "shrinks" your USB drive down to roughly 4GB. If you want to reuse your drive, you have to use this extension to erase it. It creates some unusual partitions that only this utility can delete. Chrome OS Flex does not support dual boot configurations, so if you install it on a machine with multiple hard drives expect it to erase ALL hard drives on your machine. Ideally you should test this first on a second machine, one where you aren't concerned about data loss. And no, I don't work for Google.

Linux not supported and no .iso of chrome os flex readily available. This is so useless and annoying... Not a Google standard, failed software.

Can't even flash iso file - how do i move back to linux os

Works good. It's going to run slow, maybe even very slow on a slow USB drive, just be aware of that.

clicking on the extension will not do anything

Everything went smoothly. Recovered my chromebook to brand new in less than 30 mins. Used a Windows laptop to create the USB for recovery.

I guess I won't know for sure until I have to use it, but all went well, no error messages.

Everytime I try downloading Chrome OS or Chrome OS Flex It says Download interrupted because of the internet connection, but my internet connection is really strong. I tried many USB's but none of them worked. FIX IT!

I have a 128GB MicroSD Card into a 4GB when I format it. and goes for same for my USB

I have used this in the past to some success. However it now gets stuck on the Writing phase of putting the recovery media on the USB stick. Tried several times, even left it alone on that phase for over an hour with no success. If I cannot recover ChromeOS, that pretty much makes any Chromebook with OS issues a brick. Thinking of going back to a cheap Windows or Linux laptop for my on-the-go needs.

it crashes the hole chrome browser when it is about to write or wipe the usb flash drive or thumb drive how can I fix Or stop it from crashing.

Does not work. I opened Chrome as administrator before getting the extension just in case (this is after spending HOURS trying to get this to work), and I am still getting errors. I've tried with 15GB, up to 250GB USBs, after I reformatted them and trying multiple times. No matter what I do I still get the " Unable to unzip file. Please check if your device has enough space and try again" error. This utility is complete garbage.

Doesn't support Linux, even though similar web-based tools accessing USB devices work just fine.

works flawlessly!

there was a unknow error and it made an efi parttion i cant delete and other partions

installed the extension, turned it on but it stuck at detail or remove page, unable to create a bootable disk for chromebook for my old macbook. after i spent a lot of time preparing the device

Used to be great easy to use-then just stopped working. I tried to contact via the Developer email and gmail says I am not able to contact them...

I am using a school chromebook for this because I want to make a backup in case I accidentally destroy the data when I am testing on it. Every time I try to make a copy it fails at a certain point every time. "Unable to unzip file." I don't understand and I need help with this. I formatted the sd card a few times and I feel like it is just the sd card.

I wanted to test Chrome OS Flex on some of our devices so I went through the tedious task of installing the recovery utility, downloading the OS image, unpacking, writing, verifying ... ERRR ... every time, every device, same useless message. Well, if that's an indication of what to expect from Chrome OS Flex in future you can !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it.

"Linux is currently unsupported". Clowns can't even support the kernel they made their OS with.