It’s not unusual for a Scout group to be offered an old laptop and PC – often because it’s an older bit of kit. This guide converts it to a Chromebook using a special download. This means that a PC laptop that is too slow or not licensed can be used at the Scout hut.
Google acquired a firm called Neverware and has evolved their product to create ChromeOS Flex, a tool that helps you convert an old laptop into a Chromebook.
This guide will help you make your laptop faster
What you will need;
- A memory stick or USB drive (min 8GB)
- About an hour, but you can watch tv, read a book or entertain yourself in some other way whilst checking the screen
- Another device connected to the internet to download the files.
- Your wifi password (often more of a challenge than you would think!)
- Eventually, a Google account.
How to do it;
- You will need the home edition. Note the minimum requirements of your old laptop.
- If you are using a Windows computer to prepare this, click download the USB maker.
- Follow the steps in that programme to prepare the USB stick for use.
- Once complete, you need to power up your old laptop. Here, the guide gives tips to enable your device to start up using the USB drive you created.
- Note, you can use the stick plugged in, but that will be slower than a full installation. Useful to check though.
- The full installation will wipe irreversibly*, your old files and programmes, so do be sure you have backed things up.
- Once you have completed the installation, you can remove and reuse your USB stick.
- I would personally change the laptop to start up on the hard drive again (i.e. back to how it was) as this will make the startup quicker.
- When you boot up, you will be asked for your Google account. Note that you can always create a new one and have multiple accounts on the laptop. In another post, I will suggest how to make the internet safer at the Scout hut, but also look when setting up a Google account for children at the Google Family setup – whereby you can restrict, monitor and manage your children’s account.
A quick wipe down and you are ready to go. Covid secure and ready to work.
* In theory, it is possible to reverse the process and recover data but the cost will be prohibitive and results uncertain!