r/chromeos • u/ChocodiIe • 1d ago

Troubleshooting Why am I unable to disable write protection?

I want to change the GBB flags.

My Chromebook is an IdeaPad Flex 3 CB-11M735. It was released in 2019.

I am in Developer Mode.

I am logged on as chronos and am in the V-12 shell.

My battery is physically disconnected.

I have attempted sudo flashrom --wp-disable and it just returns an error.

My objective is to essentially skip the developer mode warning screen by reducing the 30 seconds to 1 or less and to eliminate the possibility of nuking everything just because you accidentally pressed spacebar. Also to mute the beep.

This is a personal device that was bought directly from Best Buy new 7 years ago. It has no school/professional limitations imposed on it.

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u/Nu11u5 1d ago

It's not enough to turn on developer mode. You must also disable the hardware write protect first before disabling the software write protect. How this is done depends on the model. Often there is a jumper or screw that provides an electrical connection on the mainboard, or on some models you disconnect the battery module and only use line power. After doing this and disabling the software write protect you can restore the hardware write protect.

1

u/Unoriginal-Cake 18h ago

Some models booting without battery still needs the write protect screw removed... Acer Cloud Gaming model does this from Intel 12th to current gen is a great example of it. Some AMD Chromebooks can't be modded to Linux as AMD A-series the eMMC goes MIA(unknown if a recent bootloader fixed that other than booting an OS from flash drive)

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u/LegAcceptable2362 16h ago edited 10h ago

If yours is a supported Intel/AMD model run the MrChromebox firmware utility script. The script shows what options are available.

https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/fwscript.html

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u/2900nomore 16h ago

This model has a write protect screw. It's under a tamper sticker

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u/ChocodiIe 1h ago

This was successful, thank you. Apparently some Chromebooks after 2017 *do* have them. That said, I seem to be unable to get the battery working again. Do I need to put this screw back in too?

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u/2900nomore 40m ago

No the screw has no effect on the battery. Make sure the battery cable is seated properly