I have entered developer mode, disabled write protect, and flashed with MrChromebox UEFI firmware. But now when I boot to a Linux USB, it can’t see the internal drive (I think NVME drive?).
When I get to the page to partition your drive, the only drive that shows up is the USB I am running the installer from.
I also tried using the terminal from linux mint to find the drive but wasn’t able to see any nvme drives or any other drives besides the usb one.
Any idea how to make the internal drive show up?
Thanks
Some more information - I was unable to see the drive in both a Debian 12 (Bookworm) install, and LinuxMint. I also wasn’t able to see the drive from the UEFI shell, although I’m not 100% sure I have the right commands.
I am going to try Pop!_OS next.
The model is TAEKO‑XLTF.
I’m seeing some other posts about Taeko ones having this issue, but with no resolution
In Pop, I get to this exact screen and no drive shows up:
It seems like this is a weird chromebook model. On the lid it says Chromebook Plus. It’s Lenovo. The sticker on the back says IP Flex 5 Chrome. In the recovery screen it said TAEKO-XLTF.
unfortunately TAEKO is probably not going to get fixed until I can get my hands on one
I think I could help with that. I’ll send you a connect on LinkedIn.
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aside from firmware, I have some unlikely suggestion:
- The drive is knocked loose somehow so could be re-seated
- Drive may have failed in some way but this would require the drive to be transferred to a test rig if that doesn’t cause any problems…
it’s a hardware/firmware issue. TAEKO uses a PCIe to eMMC bridge chip, which requires some special handling (ie, drivers) which it does not have in edk2 currently
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Not that it is helpful in adding support, but I have one of these and ran into the same issue. You can swap a standard NVME for the goofy thing they ship in the m.2 slot. So that is a workaround.
TAEKO/TANIKS should have functional internal eMMC as of 2509.3, just need to select the correct storage type in the UEFI settings menu
I’ll have to check which version it was, but I just did this over the weekend and at least in arch the internal drive wasn’t visible but replacing with a regular NVME did work.
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you can’t just swap drives on TANIKS/TAEKO, you have to change the storage type as well as there are configuration differences and the drive type cannot be detected automatically
I ran into that same Problem and replaced that custom NVMe with a standard one. At the Moment you can get Cheap ones from People who Upgraded their Steamdeck.
I see what you’re talking about now. I actually couldn’t get to the firmware settings with that drive installed, but with it removed I can. Which feels weird. But I do see that bit in the settings now that I can get to them. It defaulted to a standard NVME and had no problem reading it. I’ve installed Cachy OS and all is well. Frankly I’m shocked at the degree to which Chrome OS handcuffed this machine. Very happy with the final outcome.
FYI I added support for the Genesys Logic eMMC/SD controllers in 2509.3
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I have successfully installed full UEFI with Linux on the flex 5 with emmc. One tipp: After you selected emmc in uefi menu you have to power off your device that this will be active. First I tried a few times only a reboot but the linux installer always said ‘no partition found’. A shutdown fixed this problem.
a hard reset will do it too 
