NVME on a Chromebook?

I had loaded my Chromebook with standard Linux using debootstrap, it worked moderately well but what I lost was NVME, at least I'm fairly sure it was working years ago. I bought 3 SSD drives and had all of the Star Trek series downloaded and converted to MP4. Years later it doesn't work anymore but all I have handy is my Chromebook. My old computers are in storage 3 hours away. I bought some Orico housings and had them all usb-pluggable.

Right now I think the problem is that Chromebooks don't use Linux kernel modules and this really needs nvme.ko. I can find a copy of the arm64 version online but I don't know where to put it since the whole kernel modules framework is missing. I just run the Linux that can be loaded from chrome's setup menu. I really wanted a Linux laptop. Any ideas on setting up a fake environment to put the module file in? I did a recover but it didn't make NVME work.

Maybe it never worked and I just thought it did. This has loop partitions and virtio which I'm not familiar with. I'm also trying to get a 256GB sdram to work and it keeps vanishing.

OK, I asked ChatGPT. I don't need NVMe.ko because the Orico housing (rtl9210 chip) is buffering and the Chromebook only needs to deal with USB. So of course nvme commands like list don't work.

As for why it doesn't work, it says one of: (1) enclosure firmware changed (2) ssd or enclosure developeed a fault (3) there's a power issue (4) USB negotiation problem or (5) ChromeOS changes. I'll start on that list.

I have an nvme in a nvme <--> usb adapter. The adaptor is fitted with usb-c socket, and has both usb-c<->>usb-c & usb-c<->>usb-A cables. Expensive, but perhaps cheaper on Ali express.

I did that only no type C stuff yet. And I did it years ago in another place I lived. That's my only experience with NVMe. Now it doesn't see the storage anymore, or anything NVMe. It's low priorty, but I could use the storage space.

Linux is just a virtual machine inside ChromeOS. Even if the Chromebook saw the NVME, it requires some finagling to port files between ChromeOS and Linux. Do you have no other computers at all? I use sshfs to mount drives/directories on other computers in my network on the Linux container, that works well. The mount is seen as just another directory in Linux, and can be ported to chromeOS if I want. Any other computer with ssh server software installed can hold the NVME and serve its files. I have a NUC working as my file server, but I can also access files from my laptop from the Chromebook if I need to, via ssh.

Most Chromebooks use NVMe drives so that should not be a problem, I am on a 10 year old Chromebook that I re-flashed the bios to use LibreBoot and installed Linux on with no issues.
If the drives you are talking about have not been connected to power for a few years, then the electrical charge in them may have dissipated leaving a blank disk, or corrosion of the enclosure chips may be an issue depending how they were stored.
What does dmesg say after you connect the drive?

My chromebook sometimes fails to see or mount a USB drive. It's probably because of a flaky USB port. Reconnecting the drive, or sometimes rebooting, fixes it. ChromeOS should see an NVME drive just like any other drive. But the Linux container cannot see it. To allow Linux to access an external USB drive, open the Files app in ChromeOS, right-click on the drive, and select "Share files with Linux", or something similar, I don't recall the exact wording, but it's close. The drive will then be mounted at /mnt/chromeos/something, I usually see /mnt/chromeos/external, but it can vary. You then can manipulate the files as necessary. But if you just want to access the files in ChromeOS, just connecting the drive and opening Files should work. If the chromebook doesn't see the USB drive at all, there is a hardware issue somewhere. The USB drive, its USB port, the cable, or the USB port on the chromebook could be faulty, that's impossible to determine from here. Try a different port, different cable, different drive, etc.