Make a Backup of your ChromeOS

If you've got a few customizations or fixes that you'd like to permanently save to your hard disk in a tidy image file, follow the instructions below.

Please note that this guide is untested, but was derived from the credible source of @DarthN8er.

1. Find the referance for your USB drive; for these instructions, we will just be using the device refrenence (e.g. sda) which will be refered to as X in this guide
2. Open terminal and execute sudo dd if=/dev/X of=~/Desktop/ChromeOSBackup-image bs=4m
3. Wait, this will take anywhere from 10-90 minutes; optionally you can check the progress of dd
4. Once shell has been returned, you should now find a image file on your desktop that can be archived or written to other USBs (of equal or greater capacity)

If you've setup a multi-boot you can still make a backup of just ChromeOS, but it's a few more steps. You've got to copy it from your hard drive in two pieces and then copy it to USB. Note: You will probably need USB device bigger 2gigs.

1. Find the partition references for the hard drive's partition which contains ChromeOS
   • You should have one that's approximately 1.68GB called C-ROOT and one that's approximately 253MB called C-STATE
   • Make a note of each reference (e.g. C-ROOT=sda6, C-STATE=sda7)
2. Open terminal and execute sudo dd if=/dev/m of=~/Desktop/C-ROOT-image bs=4m (where m is the reference to C-ROOT) to copy C-ROOT to your desktop
3. Wait, this will take anywhere from 10-60 minutes; Optional: check progress of dd
4. Execute sudo dd if=/dev/n of=~/Desktop/C-STATE-image bs=4m (where n is the reference to C-State) to copy C-STATE to your desktop
5. Wait, this will take anywhere from 5-30 minutes; Optional: check progress of dd
6. You know have images of C-STATE and C-ROOT on your desktop

1. Execute sudo apt-get install gparted
2. Execute gparted
3. In gparted, select your USB drive from the drop down list on the top (find your USB device name)
4. Make two partitions on your USB (filesystem does not matter)
   1. 1610MiB for C-ROOT
   2. 260MiB for C-STATE
5. Click Apply
6. Make a note of the partition reference for both partitions
7. Remove and then re-insert your USB drive

1. Execute sudo dd if=~/Desktop/C-ROOT-image of=/dev/Y bs=4m where Y is the larger of the two paritions on your USB
2. Execute sudo dd if=~/Desktop/C-STATE-image of=/dev/Z bs=4m where Z is the smaller of the two paritions on your USB
3. Execute sudo dd if=/dev/X of=~/Desktop/ where X is your device reference (e.g. sda)
4. You now have a backup of your ChromeOS on your desktop and on your USB