Samsung Chromebook recovery failure.

[David Kuder]

I originally posted in Chromebook Central, but they suggested asking here instead...

I am getting the dreaded recovery screen "Chrome OS is missing or damaged",
and no attempts at recovery have worked.
This is a Samsung Chromebook XE303C12 SNOW FREMONT A-E 0878
The recovery diagnostics info (TAB) shows TPM error in read only firmware 0x05.
Running recovery from a usb or sd drive gets to verifying image then fails.
The image was successfully written to the drives, and verified.  The drives work fine, as I will describe below.  The errors I get all point to a problem in communicating with the TPM chip.

I have added a boot select switch that switches between reading the bootloader from the SPI Flash, and the SD card.  With an SD card containing nv_uboot, I was able to boot to Chrome OS, but had no way into developer mode, and a complaint from Chrome OS about an invalid HWID every boot.

Using nv_uboot I can boot either of the recovery drives mentioned earlier, but they still have the same problem with verification.  However, I am able to switch virtual consoles to tty2 and see that it is booting into linux, but linux cannot communicate with the TPM chip.

Since I am booting with nv_uboot, I can put archlinuxarm, gentoo, or ubuntu on the emmc, sdcard, or usb drive with no problem.  I would like to keep ChromeOS working, since the Mali drivers are a pain to get ahold of and get working in normal linux.

Any ideas on how to proceed?

[Sonny Rao]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 1:54 PM, David Kuder <noob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I originally posted in Chromebook Central, but they suggested asking here
> instead...
>
> I am getting the dreaded recovery screen "Chrome OS is missing or damaged",
> and no attempts at recovery have worked.
> This is a Samsung Chromebook XE303C12 SNOW FREMONT A-E 0878
> The recovery diagnostics info (TAB) shows TPM error in read only firmware
> 0x05.
> Running recovery from a usb or sd drive gets to verifying image then fails.
> The image was successfully written to the drives, and verified. The drives
> work fine, as I will describe below. The errors I get all point to a
> problem in communicating with the TPM chip.
>
> I have added a boot select switch that switches between reading the
> bootloader from the SPI Flash, and the SD card. With an SD card containing
> nv_uboot, I was able to boot to Chrome OS, but had no way into developer
> mode, and a complaint from Chrome OS about an invalid HWID every boot.
>
> Using nv_uboot I can boot either of the recovery drives mentioned earlier,
> but they still have the same problem with verification. However, I am able
> to switch virtual consoles to tty2 and see that it is booting into linux,
> but linux cannot communicate with the TPM chip.

So if you just boot the ChromeOS kernel, using nv_uboot, you still
cannot see a tpm device?

If that's the case, I'd have to wonder if the TPM hardware isn't
somehow bad, in which case I wouldn't expect the normal verified boot
firmware to work at all, and that would match your current experience.

> Since I am booting with nv_uboot, I can put archlinuxarm, gentoo, or ubuntu
> on the emmc, sdcard, or usb drive with no problem. I would like to keep
> ChromeOS working, since the Mali drivers are a pain to get ahold of and get
> working in normal linux.
>
> Any ideas on how to proceed?
>
>

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[forger...@gmail.com]

	Original Message

From: David Kuder Sent: Friday, July 11, 2014 5:54 PM To: chromium-...@chromium.org Reply To: noob...@gmail.com Subject: [cros-discuss] Samsung Chromebook recovery failure.

[David Kuder]

It would appear the TPM chip is dead.  Every command sent to the chip returns status 9 - TPM_FAIL.
Hopefully I'll be able to drop a replacement chip in place and get it back to working.

> email to chromium-os-discuss+unsub...@chromium.org.

[DennisLfromGA]

@David Kuder,

It appears I've run into the same snag on my Acer C7:

And an excerpt from the 'recovery.log' complains too -

+ recovery_install

+ NEWROOT_MNT=/usb

+ lock_tpm

+ [ -z  ]

+ tpmc startup

+ tpmc ctest

ERROR: TPM: Cannot open TPM device /dev/tpm0: No such file or directory

+ tpmc block

ERROR: TPM: Cannot open TPM device /dev/tpm0: No such file or directory

+ is_nonchrome

+ crossystem mainfw_type?nonchrome

+ crossystem mainfw_type?netboot

+ dlog An unrecoverable error occurred with your security device

+ echo An unrecoverable error occurred with your security device

+ tee -a /dev/tty2 /dev/tty3

An unrecoverable error occurred with your security device

+ dlog Please power down and try again.

+ echo Please power down and try again.

+ dlog Failed to lock bGlobalLock.

+ echo Failed to lock bGlobalLock. 

> Hopefully I'll be able to drop a replacement chip in place and get it back to working.

Wondering if you had any iuck with the chip replacement??? 

-DennisL

[Sonny Rao]

It probably isn't feasible to replace the TPM on a Samsung Chromebook because it is soldered down, but on a Acer C7 I think it's socketed, so it might be more feasible, and it's also a different TPM, so you'd have to replace it with precisely the correct one.  Also, you wouldn't get your data back, but you'd need to recover the device at that point.

Do you happen to know what version of ChromeOS you were running when this happened?

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chromium-os-dis...@chromium.org.

[DennisLfromGA]

I actually do know that I was running version 6310.14.0 (39.0.2171.25) because I've had problems with any newer versions on this platform, see Issue 428041, but I think it updated again and failed at the next reboot. I've had to re-priortize the kernel partition each time after an update to get back to 6310.14.0 so I could get things working again but this time it got very borked for some reason.

I suppose I could try to find a TPM module and try replacing it if it's not too cost prohibitive. I've actually already ordered a new HP Chromebook 14 and a 128GB SSD for it so I'll probably be moving on from my Acer C710...

Thanx for the feedback, I'll let you know what happens if I do replace the TPM.

-DennisL

> email to chromium-os-discuss+unsubscribe...@chromium.org.

[royp]

Hi found this post, hope someone will be able to help as I have the same problem with 0x05 TPM error. Does anyone know where the TPM chip is?? Can I replace the motherboard to cure this problem?? Thanks in advance Roy

[Mike Frysinger]

it most likely would be cheaper & easier to simply buy a new chromebook than try to replace the motherboard

-mike

[royp]

Hi Mike thanks for the reply, have done some more digging on internet and found the TPM is on the motherboard so will keep my eye on ebay for a motherboard, one will come along eventually at the right price. Cheers

[L. Szabo]

I have added a boot select switch that switches between reading the bootloader from the SPI Flash, and the SD card.  With an SD card containing nv_uboot, I was able to boot to Chrome OS, but had no way into developer mode, and a complaint from Chrome OS about an invalid HWID every boot.

Can you tell me how did you manage to boot other than SPI? Any picture, wiring diagram would be appreciated!

How did you prepare you boot media (e.g. is nv_uboot on the first partition, etc.)?

[DennisLfromGA]

Since this thread is still 'slightly' alive, I thought I'd report that my Acer C710 is 'FIXED' and working again.

I followed a couple of threads here and here and got it going - yeah!

Maybe there's hope for others yet...

-DennisL

[Joakim]

Thanks for posting. Worked for me on a Samsung CB 2 13". 

[javjanjes]

I just bought a hp chromebook from some guy and I tried to restore it but it has the same error I think the tmp is not letting me do it any idea how I can reset from factory settings

[Adam Van Ymeren]

On Friday, 11 July 2014 16:54:48 UTC-4, David Kuder wrote:

I originally posted in Chromebook Central, but they suggested asking here instead...

I am getting the dreaded recovery screen "Chrome OS is missing or damaged",
and no attempts at recovery have worked.
This is a Samsung Chromebook XE303C12 SNOW FREMONT A-E 0878
The recovery diagnostics info (TAB) shows TPM error in read only firmware 0x05.
Running recovery from a usb or sd drive gets to verifying image then fails.
The image was successfully written to the drives, and verified.  The drives work fine, as I will describe below.  The errors I get all point to a problem in communicating with the TPM chip.

I have added a boot select switch that switches between reading the bootloader from the SPI Flash, and the SD card.

Sorry for resurrecting an ancient thread.  I've been mucking with my old XE303C12 and eventually bricked the firmware.  Any chance you remember how your boot select switch was wired?  I've been googling to no avail, being able to boot from SD card rather than SPI flash would be good for experimenting.  Instead of having to restore the firmware with a bus pirate repeatedly.

Thanks!

[Abiel]

On Friday, July 11, 2014 at 4:54:48 PM UTC-4, David Kuder wrote:

Hey my name is able I have Samsung chrome so it's says chrome OS is missing or damaged so how can I fixed it

[DennisLfromGA]

Abiel,

There are a number of 'recovery_reasons' that will give you the 'Chrome OS is missing ...' message but I think this issue might be better handled on the 'Chromebook Central forum'.  If it's a Pixelbook that's giving you trouble then the 'Pixelbook forum' would be the place to go.  Whichever forum you decide to use please search for the topic first since it's been asked and answered many times over.

~Dennis