Dual Boot Chrome OS and Windows – Install Without Linux or USB Drive!

Chrome OS is becoming more popular and the choice of many educational institutions. It is undeniable that many want to try it for themselves. But not everyone is willing to give up the safety and home feel of the Windows Operating System. Let me share a guide to help you with Dual Boot Chrome OS and Windows 10/11.

1. Dual Boot Chrome OS without Linux Mint or USB! [UPDATE]

There is a new easy method to dual boot Chrome OS available. This does not require any Linux installation or using a USB drive. There are a few steps, which are easy to follow. So let’s start the procedure…

1.1. Requirements

• 64 Bit Computer System with 16GB or more space
• Secure Boot Disabled from BIOS
• Hyper-V or Virtualization is enabled from BIOS
• 16 GB USB or above
• UEFI Boot (MBR may or may not support with MBR patch)
• Intel CPU from Sandy Bridge or later (Intel Core 2 Duo or older is Not Supported)
• Atom, Celeron, and Pentium processors are supported as of Baytrail or later.
• AMD Stoney Ridge or AMD Ryzen
• ARM CPUs are not supported

1.2. DIsable Hybernation and Fast Start-Up

To successfully dual boot Chrome OS and Windows, we need to disable hibernation and fast startup. Open Windows terminal and here type, “powercfg.exe /hibernate off“. This will disable hibernation mode on our system.

Now to disable fast start-up, we will edit the registry of our Windows computer. Right-click on the Windows key and run “Regedit”. Here follow this path, “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power”. You can paste this into the path dialogue box.

We need to locate the HyberBootEnabled option, then right-click and modify it. Change the value from “1” to ‘0″. this will disable the fast start-up option.

Disable Secure Boot

We need to disable secure boot from the BIOS of our computer. Different manufacturers have different key to enter the BIOS. You can find the BIOS keys for various companies down below.

While you are here and if your system is a bit older. Also find something called the “legacy boot” and also disable that as well.

And lastly, we need to enable option related to virtualization. It is called Hyper-V for some just virtualization on others. On modern computers, it enabled by default. So, if you don’t see such option, then it must be enabled already.

1.3. Installing Ubuntu

First, we will set up Ubuntu on our system. Open up PowerShell as admin by right-clicking on the start menu. Here type,

wsl --install

And the installation of various tools and Ubuntu will begin. After that when you check your installed programs list you’ll see Ubuntu installed as well. Open Ubuntu and create a username and password. Now type,

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y install pv cgpt

1.4. Creating Partitions

Now in the search dialogue type partition and open “Create and format hard disk”. We will create a new partition to install Chrome OS by right-clicking the D drive and shrinking it. You can create a partition of 16GB and above. Name the partition as “Chrome OS”. Now open the Chrome OS partition and create a folder and name it “chromeos”.

1.5. Downloading Files

First, we will download the Chrome OS Recovery image. There are different versions for different CPUs and generations. Download the latest version from the list.

• Intel 1st Gen to 9th Gen – Rammus
• Intel 10th and 11th gen – Volteer (Some 10th and 11th Gen need Kernel 5.10)
• AMD – Stoney Ridge and Bristol Ridge – Grunt
• AMD Ryzen – Zork (Some Ryzen 4xxx needs Kernel 5.10)

Additionally, we will also need the latest Sebanc Brunch file to make all this work. Thanks to the developer Sebanc for making this possible. Now move all the downloaded files into a folder and name it “chromeos“. You can name it anything else but make sure there are no spaces or special characters.

Lastly, we will download the Grub2Win file from this link. We will use this program to create a dual boot menu. Most of these files are similar to what we have used before.

For the MBR Boot system, download the MBR patch file from here (not guaranteed to work). Make a folder named “chromeos” in your downloads directory. Move all the downloaded files to that folder. Now using 7zip or WinRAR extract all the files.

We have to extract the Brunch file twice to get the required files. In the case of MBR, extract the patch file the same way and it will overwrite existing files in the folder.

Check Out The Video Guide:

1.6. Dual Boot Chrome OS and Windows 10/11 without Linux Mint

Now open Ubuntu and we will mount the directory where all our downloaded files are located. Make sure to double-check the directory path and names. So type,

cd /mnt/(your downloads folder location)" for example: cd /mnt/d/downloads/chromeos/

And after this, we will type our main installation command. Type,

sudo bash chromeos-install.sh -src (recovery image name.bin) -dst /mnt/(chromeos partition folder) -s (size)

For example: sudo bash chromeos-install.sh -src chromeos_14268.67.0_rammus_recovery_stable-channel_mp-v2.bin -dst /mnt/f/chromeos/ -s 20

The size will be the partition size that you have created. After you hit enter the creation of partition and installation will begin.

Then you will see a prompt asking if you want to dual boot Chrome OS, so type dualboot. It will give us a command like “mount vol F: / \ L” So copy the command and open Powershell as admin by right-clicking the start menu. Now paste the command and hit enter. It will give some numbers and code.

Copy only the numbers and hyphens and not the brackets. Now paste this code into the Ubuntu terminal. It will generate a grub2win menu entry file in the Chrome OS partition that we created. It will ask us to disable the Bit locker, Hibernation, and Fast Startup.

1.7. Grub2Win For Dual Boot Menu

Make sure your secure boot is disabled otherwise grub2win will not install successfully. After it has been installed we will open the “Manage boot menu” and create a new entry. Name it as Chrome OS and in the Type section select “User Creation”‘ It will open up Notepad.

Now we need to open the chromeos folder that we created inside the Chrome OS partition. Here, open the grub-menu.txt and copy all the commands. Paste those commands in the Notepad and close and save it. Now hit Apply and select OK.

1.8. Dual Boot into Chrome OS

Now we will restart our system in BIOS and select Boot Device Options. Now select Grub2Win Boot manager and using the down arrow key you will see Chrome OS name. Hit enter and you will see the Brunch framework logo.

It will take some time but eventually, you will see the Chrome OS logo and the setup screen. Just set it up and start using your Chrome OS with Play Store support.

2. Dual Boot Chrome OS and Windows 10/11 with Linux Mint

2.1 Requirements

• Laptop or Desktop with x64 bit CPU
• UEFI or MBR BIOS (MBR needs additional Patch to work)
• Secure Boot Disabled in BIOS
• Intel or AMD Chipset (AMD support is limited)
• No Nvidia or ARM support
• No Support for Virtual Machines (VMware)
• 8GB or Above USB Pendrive

2.2. DIsable Hybernation and Fast Start Up

To successful dual boot Chrome OS and Windows, we need to disable hibernation and fast startup. Open Windows terminal and here type, “powercfg.exe /hibernate off“. This will disable hibernation mode on our system.

No to disable fast start-up, we will edit the registry of our Windows computer. Right-click on the Windows key and run “Regedit“. Here follow this path, “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power“. You can paste this in the path dialogue box.

We need to locate the HyberBootEnabled option, then right-click and modify it. Change the value from “1” to ‘0″. this will disable the fast start up option.

Disable Secure Boot

We need to disable secure boot from the BIOS of our computer. Different manufacturers have different key to enter the BIOS. You can find the BIOS keys for various companies down below.

While you are here and if your system is a bit older. Also find something called the “legacy boot” and also disable that as well.

And lastly, we need to enable option related to virtualization. It is called Hyper-V for some just virtualization on others. On modern computers, it enabled by default. So, if you don’t see such option, then it must be enabled already.

2.3. Files Needed

To install Chrome OS as a primary operating system is simpler than dual booting it with Windows. Even the files we need are similar but there are a couple of new additions to the list. First, we need the Linux Mint OS file which is a type of Linux distribution. This will help us to flash the Chrome OS to our system.

We can download the Linux Mint image from this link and download the latest release. Next, we need to download the Brunch Framework to make the Chrome OS work on our system after flashing it. A Github user name Sebanc has made such a framework file for us to utilize. You can download that file from here.

Now we need the Chrome OS recovery image. This is the main Chrome OS file that we will flash in order to use the operating system. Download the image file from this link. Search for rammus (Intel Upto 9th Gen) samus for Intel 3rd Gen or lower, volteer (10th Gen or Above). And zork for (Ryzen), grunt for (AMD) (Stoney Ridge, and Bristol Ridge), then download the latest recovery image.

To dual boot Chrome OS, we need to create a new boot menu. For that, we need a program called Grub2win. Download the program from this link. We also need a script that we will run in the terminal window to dual boot Chrome OS. This script is called the multi-install script. Download it from here.

For the MBR Boot system, download the MBR patch file from here (not guaranteed to work).

2.4. Initial Process

Let’s start by extracting the files we downloaded earlier. Create a new folder called Chrome OS in the downloads folder. Extract the Brunch framework file and Chrome OS recovery image file. The Brunch Framework file is a tar.gz file, so we need to extract it twice. In the case of MBR, extract the patch file the same way and it will overwrite existing files in the folder.

After extracting the Chrome OS recovery image we need to rename the file obtained. For example, if you downloaded the rammus image. Rename it as rammus_recovery.bin and for Zork, it should be zork_recovery.bin respectively. Move all the files thus extracted into the Chrome OS folder. Also, move the muti install script in the folder as well. Leave the Linux mint and grub file outside.

2.5. Create Partition

We need to create a partition in our drive to dual boot Chrome OS. Open the search window and type partition. A program called Disk management should appear. Open the app and it will show all the storage details and different partitions. the drive other than the C drive should be shrunk for this new partition. Right-click on the D drive as in my case and click shrink.

We have to put in the values for the storage space we want to allocate. The values will be in MB so choose wisely. I decided to make a 200 GB partition so I chose 200000 MB. You can choose anything upwards of 100GB. Follow the process and your new partition will be created.

While you are here make sure to check your storage partition scheme as well. Whether it is GPT or MBR scheme. Right-click on the left area where it’s written Disk 0 and select properties. Now under the volume tab, you can see your storage partition scheme. Note it down as we will need it while making our bootable USB drive.

2.6. Create Bootable USB

We need to make a bootable USB drive with Linux Mint OS. We will then boot into Linux Mint OS to flash the Chrome OS. First, we need a USB drive of 8 GB or more. Then, download a program called Rufus if you have not already.

Open the program and select the Linux Mint ISO image. Choose the partition scheme according to our previous step. Leave everything else as default and press start, It will then format your USB drive into a bootable drive.

Read How To Create Bootable USB For Multiple ISO Files

2.7. Entering System’s BIOS

We need to enter our PC or laptop’s BIOS option to boot into Linux Mint. For HP laptops, the key to enter bios is ESC key or F10. Restart your computer and as soon the screen lights up press the BIOS key and it will show various options. We need to select the Boot options and then select our USB drive. The system then will boot up from the USB drive which will then boot the Linux Mint OS.

2.8. Using Linux Mint

After booting into Linux Mint we do not need to install the Operating System. We can just use this interface to install the Chrome OS. Connect the system to an internet connection via WiFi or Ethernet.

Open the computer icon and then select the drive where the Chrome OS is located. In the Chrome OS folder, we need to press right-click and select open in the terminal menu. Once in the terminal interface, we need to run some commands. First type sudo sh multi_install.sh and press enter. The process should start.

After the process is done there will be a new window opening up. It will list down all the partitions on our computer. We need to select the partition that we made earlier. Then press the Plus icon on top.

Now we need to format the partition and create a new partition for the OS. In the file system, select ‘NTFS’ and press add. Then press the Tick icon on top and confirm apply all operations.

After it’s done creating a partition make sure to remember the name of the partition of the Chrome OS. For example, sda6, sda7, etc. When you will close the window you will be asked to enter the name of the partition in the terminal. For example sda6 or sda7, etc.

So type the name of the partition and press enter. Then type ‘Yes’ and the final process to install Chrome OS will begin. It will take some time though. After the installation is done there will be a pop-up window with some errors. Just ignore the error and close the window.

2.9. Dual Boot Chrome OS GRUB Menu

Now we need to copy some text from the terminal. Locate the commands between a bunch of asterisks. It will start with menu entry and end with closing curly brackets. We need to copy the text inside those asterisks.

Then in the Chrome OS folder create a new text file or blank document. Then open the files and paste the commands. Save this file with the name of your choice as we will need it in a bit.

2.10. Editing Grub2WIn

Now just reboot your system and you should be back to Windows OS. We need to install the grub2win program we downloaded earlier. It will take a long time to install it so have patience. Once it’s done you may see an error saying your secure boot is enabled.

To fix it you need to enter your BIOS options and then select BIOS setup options. From here go to boot settings and disable secure boot and save and exit.

Once done you will not see that error in the program again. Now in the program, we need to go to Manage Boot Options at the bottom. Then click Add New Entry and from here we will create our menu entry for Dual Booting Chrome OS.

From the Type drop-down select Submenu and rename Title as Chrome OS. Now click on Enter Custom Code and copy-paste the commands we copied earlier from the text file. Once done click Apply and OK and it’s done.

You can also move up and down the position of the boot menu according to your need. This is how it will appear when starting the system. You can set the Grub2Win as your default boot manager so you can choose between Windows and Chrome OS.

You can also customize other options related to the interface as well. After everything is done click on OK and exit the program and your settings will be saved. So now we have successfully installed Chrome OS in Dual Boot.

2.11. Dual Boot GRUB Menu

Now when you restart your system you will see the Grub2WIn boot manager asking to boot either into Windows or Chrome OS. Select the Chrome OS and again same then it will start loading the Brunch Framework.

This will take some time and once done you will see the Chrome OS logo and the setup screen. it’s advisable to use a secondary Google account with this Chrome OS as Google officially doesn’t support third-party machines. So that was how to dual boot Chrome OS and Windows 10/11 using Linux Mint.

Check Out The Video Guide:

3. Chrome OS and Windows 11

So there were TWO methods on how to Dual Boot Chrome OS and Windows 10 or 11. Both of the methods work fine and can be used with almost no issues if steps are followed correctly. So select one of your preferences, if others do not work. Do not forget to share all your questions in the comments.

You can check out the new lightweight Chrome OS Flex: The Chrome OS For Everyone!.

4. FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions