CAREENA HP Chromebook TPM Initialization Error - is Linux possible?

Support Linux Support
1

I have a CAREENA HP Chromebook which displays Secure NVRAM (TPM) initialization error when trying to boot its original Chrome OS installation. I am unable to recover it with Chrome OS as it states there is a problem with the device’s security module. I have tried to reset the TPM module by restarting countless times but no luck.

I was wondering if there is any way to bypass the seemingly broken TPM module by maybe installing a Linux distro? I can’t enable developer mode the usual way as it just reboots to Chrome OS is missing or damaged.

Thanks

2

Have you tried holding Refresh and clicking Power? This is like a “hard restart” and it drains all power from the Chromebook EC. I don’t even think you can install anything other than ChromeOS if developer mode is disabled.

3

Yes I have tried this and unfortunately no success

4

So there is no way to enable developer mode without a working TPM?

5

In recovery mode, press tab to show debug info. Upload a picture of that here.

6

In recovery mode:

20240326_161950
20240326_1619501920×1440 371 KB

7

The boot error screen:

20240326_161715
20240326_1617151920×1440 345 KB

8

Are you not able to run chromeos recovery?

9

17114838025692286893420887047042
171148380256922868934208870470421920×1440 222 KB

No, I get this error

10

Just wondering, have you ever flashed full rom on this device? If not you could go to the google forums with a valid reason, though idk how helpful those are

11

No, I have never flashed any unofficial firmware.

Although I was wondering if the TPM is broken then maybe there’s a possibility of doing that and making it usable again?

12

Custom firmware will ignore the tpm.

13

How would I go about flashing that without access to developer mode?

14

You would need an external flasher such as a ch341a.

15

example of above mentioned flasher https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RV35D4B/

16

Thanks. I will try this