How to Instant Boot Chrome OS

Remember all of those computers and motherboards shipped with some variant of an "instant-on OS"? The concept was developed because a lot of people felt that Microsoft's Windows OS took too long to boot, so an optional quick-booting Linux distro was pre-installed. The problem, however, is that they're all terrible. 

If you use ExpressGate, which is ASUS' implementation of the concept, there's now a solution that actually makes the idea interesting and useful: replacing the clumsy, non-updateable, non-app-installable built-in OS gets pulled off and replaced with a version of Google's Chrome operating system. Chrome will allow users to easily install apps and webapps, and dramatically increase the functionality of the software. 

You'll need the following supplies to get started: 
Requirements:

• Windows Installation
• Express Gate must already be installed. Look it up on your computer’s support site for the download or google it.
• Grub4dos
• GParted or a linux distribution / live cd that has GParted.
• Chromium OS Image
• Windows Image Writer
• Flash Drive or some sort of flash media

The steps should work for any setup that uses the same company's software (known as ExpressGate on ASUS, it goes by a number of names). 

To figure out the rest of process, check out this blog post that walks you through the whole procedure. Soon, you'll be hitting that Instant-On button and playing Angry Birds on Chrome in just seconds flat! 

Step 1: Prepare the Flash Drive

1. Open Windows Image Writer
2. Select your extracted chromium os image that you downloaded from the link above
3. Make sure to select the correct drive letter of your flash drive
4. Click "Write"
5. Restart laptop and boot from GParted or your linux live cd

Step 2: Create Partitions and Copy Chromium to the newly created partitions 

1. Using GParted utility find the partition reference of C-ROOT and C-STATE on your flash drive e.g. /dev/sdb2
2. Create a ext2 partition on your hard drive and label it C-ROOT make sure it is 858 MB . Turn off "round cylinders" check           box.
3. Create an ext3 partition on your hard drive that is at least 1 GB and label it C-STATE. Once again, turn off "round cylinders" check box.
4. Remember the partition reference of C-ROOT and C-STATE of the newly created partitions on your hard drive e.g. /dev/sda3

Open terminal and enter the following commands:

Commands: 
sudo dd if=/dev/sdb1 of=/dev/sda3 bs=4096
sudo dd if=/dev/sdb2 of=/dev/sda4 bs=4096
These commands will copy the partitions on your flash to the partitions that you just created. Remember the commands above are referencing my partitions! yours might turn out differently, that's why I asked you to reference the partitions on your flash drive and on the hard drive.

After copying the partitions turn off the computer and start windows once again.
Step 3: ExpressGate menu.lst configuration 

1. Make sure expressgate is already installed if not install it.
2. Browse to C:\ExpressGate
3. Edit C:\ExpressGate\menu.lst 

Original Code: 
default saved
timeout 0
hiddenmenu
title minik
kernel /ExpressGate/vace ro no_win_installer=0 pci=nocrs i8042.reset quiet video=intelfb acpi_backlight=vendor cpi_display_output=vendor vaKBD=us VALANG=en_US fastreboot=no acpi_osi=Linux av_flag=1 rw_flag=1 debug_log=1 nwm=1 initrd /ExpressGate/vace-id 
Edited Code: default saved
timeout 0
hiddenmenu
title minik
kernel /grub.exe Leave the rest of it alone, don't delete or edit anything else Step 4: Grub4dos configuration 

1. Download Grub4dos from the above link 
2. Extract grub.exe and grldr from the archive and copy them to the root of your drive, e.g. C:\
3. Create a file (either from notepad or the context menu) in the same location named "menu.lst" we will be using this file to access the ext partition that was created in GParted and and we will load Grub2 with it.
4. Edit the file and enter the following code:

Code: 
prompt 0
timeout 0
default ChromeOS
hiddenmenu
title ChromeOS
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz 
root=/dev/sda3 rw noresume noswap i915.modeset=1 loglevel=1 quiet

Note: make sure to point to the partition that you created in GParted!!! My configuration ended up being "/dev/sda3," but that doesn't mean that yours will too! 

Step 5: 
Save the file and turn off the computer. Start your laptop from the quick start button and cross your fingers. It worked for on my first try, but for some reason after I turned off my computer my windows partition was no longer active.

I had to fix that issue using diskpart from a Windows 7 startup disk. It hasn't happened since, so I think it might've been a fluke. 

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