Edit: I just discovered a problem in the grub.cfg included in efi.zip that broke the Chrome application menu. I uploaded a new version of efi.zip that fixes this issue.
Note: This tutorial assumes that you have followed the directions at (http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/) and already have Chrome OS Flow loaded onto a 2GB or larger usb flash drive. This drive will be further known as the ChromeOS Drive.
Note++: It may be possible to get Chrome OS Flow working on other Intel-based MacBooks/MacBook Pros, but for all intents and purposes, this tutorial is for getting Chrome OS Flow to run on a Intel Core 2 Duo based MacBook that uses the Intel GMA 950 chipset. Feel free to use my work as a starting point if you would like to try to get it working with other models.
What Hardware You Will Need
An additional usb flash drive. (Any size or model should work.). This drive will be further known as the Bootloader Drive.
Hardware You Might Need
A usb hub or usb extender cable. (These may be necessary because having two usb flash drives plugged into your MacBook’s two usb ports may either be a little cramped or not physically possible w/o using a hub or extender cable.)
Preparing the Bootloader Drive
Open Disk Utility, select your Bootloader Drive, click the Erase tab and format your drive as “MS-DOS (FAT)”.
Download and extract the contents of this file, efi.zip.
Copy the “efi” folder to the root of the Bootloader Drive.
Plugging Drives Into Correct USB Port
The Bootloader Drive must be plugged into the first usb port (the first port from the left) and the ChromeOS Drive must be plugged into the second usb port.
Booting Chrome OS Flow
Restart OSX and immediately hold down the Option key.
Choose “EFI Boot”.
The GRUB bootloader should appear, automatically load Chrome OS Flow, display the splash screen and then stop at the Chrome OS login screen.
Logging into Chrome OS Flow
You can either log in using your gmail account username and password or by using “facepunch” as both the username and password. Enjoy. 
Tags: Chrome OS Flow, Core 2 Duo, Intel, MacBook
Pics or it didn’t happen!
How do you like it as compared to OSX or Win 7?
Hey! Thanks for your work. Would you mind if this guide was reproduced in its entirety on the wiki?
Nate: Haha i’ll make sure to send you some pics of it in action. It certainly has its issues, but as long as you’re using a machine that’s fully supported hardware wise, it’s pretty smokin’. It doesn’t really compare to OSX and Win7 because it’s basically just a glorified version of the Chromium/Chrome browser. Don’t get me wrong, it’s my favorite browser but you can only go so far with just a browser.
Mitchell: Sure no problem!
Very, cool but it’s not working for me right now. I put in both flashdrives, boot into the efi and then click enter to boot into Chrome OS and it says it can’t find there kernal. Any tips?
Thanks!
Joe
Joe R: Which model of MacBook are you using and what are the specs?
On my MacBook 5,1 (which is Core 2 Duo but NVIDIA 9400M), I can’t get the EFI Boot option to appear, just Mac OS.
Just tried an alternative.
Instead of Derek’s efi, I tried rEFIt on my Macbook5,1. Just install rEFIt on my MB and press option key on the boot. Then select the Flow drive.
Voila!! It boots on Flow and this only requires one USB drive.
Alex: My method doesn’t work with MacBooks that use NVIDIA yet.
Sprigan: Very interesting, rEFIt wasn’t able to boot older versions of Hexxeh’s Chrome OS builds, tried that originally before trying my grub method. Will see if rEFIt works on my MacBook now too.
Sprigan: Booting using rEFIt still doesn’t work for me, I get an error about legacy booting from rEFIt. Did you do anything special to get it to work?
Derek: Nope, just fresh install of rEFIt 0.13 and everything is working for me.
I have a late 2006 Black MacBook Pro
Here are the specs I believe:
2.16 GHz
RAM: 1 GB (2×512)
Hard Drive: - 160 GB, 5400rpm.
Processor Type: - Intel, Core 2 Duo (Merom)
Bus Speed: - 667 MHz
RAM Speed: - 667 MHz
Cache: - 4 MB L2 cache
RAM Type: - PC2-5300, DDR2, SO-DIMM.
Graphics Card: - Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950.
Thanks and sorry about the delay!
Joe
Thanks, rEFIt (burned to a CD) worked for me too. Posting this from ChromeOS on my MacBook!
Sprigan: Hmmm. I wonder if i’m having issues with rEFIt because my system is set to dual boot WinXP and OSX.
Alex: Glad to see that worked for you, unfortunately my optical drive is broken and I can try that method. :/
Derek: I don’t like the way rEFIt was on my Mac at boot time and also using CD-ROM to boot is not my thing, so I removed it and install rEFIt on separate boot USB memory. (Two USBs, similar to your method)
This also works!! Just need to hold option-key at boot time.
(See “Installing on a separate volume or external disk” http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c1s1_install.html)
Hope this helps.
Joe R: From the specs you posted it looks like you have this model (http://support.apple.com/kb/SP18) but it should meet the requirements. The only things I can think of is maybe you had the flash drives plugged into the wrong usb ports or the chrome os flow image could have been bad (there were some bad images on some of the mirrors) or maybe something went wrong in the imaging process while transferring the image to your flash drive.
Sprigan: Thanks for the tip, but I installed rEFIt on usb flash drive and I still got the same errors I got when using rEFIt from my OSX partition. I’m beginning to think that this has something to do with the version of EFI firmware on my MacBook, it can only go up to EFI 1.1 and some of the newer MacBooks and MacBook Pros have versions of the EFI firmware ranging from 1.2 to 1.8.
Derek: Thanks Derek, I tried the chrome drive in another computer and booted off it fine so I don’t think it’s the issue. I guess I’ll try other usb ports and get back to you. Thanks so much for the help!
Possibly relevant — rEFIt from a CD works with my MacBook, but when I tried to install rEFIt to my internal hd, it wouldn’t see the Chrome drive, just Mac OS.
Have tried all day to get Chrome O/S going on a Core i7 27″ iMac (iMac11,1). I’m using rEFIt on a boot CD, and it recognizes that the USB-drive is a choice, but when used in all 4 USB-ports of the iMac, and the two in the keyboard, it goes to black screen and says: No Bootable Device — Insert Boot Disk and press any key to continue.
Upon powerup, the USB-drive flashes, pauses, flashes again. Then the boot-menu (iMac or rEFIt). Choose rEFIt, and it flashes again. rEFIt gives either Apple (blue-apple) or USB (grey windows-looking 4-square, with a tiny USB-drive as part of the icon).
Selecting USB I believe briefly flashes the drive, but then the black screen.
I used the MD5 command to ensure a clean checksum on my local image.
I used the dd command to get the file on the USB. I tried both to the “disk1″ high-level reference to the USB-drive, and “disk2s2″ low level reference to the USB (the partition istself).
It wasn’t clear whether or not to format the USB drive as MS-DOS (FAT) or OS X extended. One took a longer time to copy the IMG.
Anyway I’m out of options.
Thoughts welcome. Thanks in advance for any commentary from the community. My first attempt to boot a Mac outside of OS X.
I hope I don’t piss off the Cat!
Cheers.
I can’t believe it. The same method as in my previous post (2/27/10 5:05pm, core i7 27″ imac) works on our Unibody MacBook (pre pro). (mac5,1).
Using the facepunch facepunch gets me in.
I can’t say if anything is actually working yet, (no webpages), but that’s the subject of another post….
Comments still welcome on the iMac.
Cheers 2
My macbook is almost the same configuration as Joe’s, MB061, bought in mid 2007.(http://support.apple.com/kb/SP18)
In my macbook, Snow Leopard and XP are installed.
I found one phenomenon: when using a large USB driver, for instance, a 4G one, my macbook cannot detect the bootloader USB during starting up. However, when using a small one, I use a 128M one for testing, it can load the GRUB and then boot Chomium OS Flow successfully.
I also install rEFIt for trial before I tried the method above, but failed. The same message showed in the screen, as Derek’s, that is something like legacy booting error. The reason might be incompatibility between a up-to-date EFI version and rEFIt.
But I still have one problem. When I reached the login interface, I cannot actually login. After I typed my gamil account and password, Chrome OS didnot login but maintained in the login window with user and password blank.
Maybe it is because the Chrome could not find the network setting, or something else. Any tips to such a situation? No mouse could be used in the login window as well.
mak the bootloader USB into a small partitions are useful.
A crucial problem exists. I need two USB to boot the Chrome every time. Hence, it’s very far unconvenient. Any body knows how to insert the grub loader in Chrome OS to make it boot from one USB?
I could only use facepunch/facepunch to login…
Got ChromeOS to boot successfully with this method, thanks Derek!
Only question I have is if ChromeOS can actually be installed? Things were laggy, graphic-wise, for me and I assume that is due to running off the USB stick. I’d also prefer to not have to plug in these two USB sticks every time I want to boot into ChromeOS.
Running on a Macbook Pro, version 5,4.
Mike: A couple days ago I figured out a way to get ChromeOS booting on my MacBook with only one USB stick. The method isn’t very elegant and i’ll probably put up a blog post with more details soon, but the gist of it is this:
1. Using fuse-ext2 you mount your ChromeOS drive as writable
2. Copy the /efi folder to the root directory of the ChromeOS drive
3. Make sure rEFIt is enabled and then reboot holding option
4. Select rEFIt and then boot to rEFIt’s EFI Shell
5. Change the current directory to the /efi/boot directory on the ChromeOS drive
6. Run bootia32.efi and you should get the Grub boot menu.
Awesome Derek, thanks for the update. I will give that a try.
Sadly, I was only able to get the original method to boot the first time. All other attempts at booting ChromeOS would hang at the second EFI boot loader (from the “bootloader” USB drive).
Will let you know if the fuse-ext2 method works for me.
Thanks again,
-Mike
I am typing this with flow on my mac mini. I burned a cd with the efi disk image and used that to select the usb drive. Worked the first time. Logged in with my gmail account no problem.
Thanks for the work- great job Derek!
I think I got lucky… Installed rEFIt 0.14 on my 13″ Macbook Pro 5,5 with Nvidia graphics, rebooted with the USB stick in, selected “Linux on hard drive” in rEFIt, and it somehow worked. Didn’t mod anything, just took a shot in the dark, and it somehow worked.
Just wish I could get wifi to connect