Chrome OS Version: 7978.66.3
Chrome OS Platform: BUDDY / Acer Chromebase 24

Steps To Reproduce:
(1) Open Chrome OS Recovery Tool app, select "BUDDY " for image. Create image on USB Drive.
(2) Unplug USB Drive and plug back in.
(3) OBSERVE: No notifications of found disks, nothing mounted by existing Chrome OS install.
(4) Download current image to a Linux machine:

wget https://dl.google.com/dl/edgedl/chromeos/recovery/chromeos_7978.66.3_buddy_recovery_stable-channel_mp.bin.zip

(5) Unzip:

unzip chromeos_7978.66.3_buddy_recovery_stable-channel_mp.bin.zip

(6) Attempt to examine partitions with parted:

sudo parted chromeos_7978.66.3_buddy_recovery_stable-channel_mp.bin
(parted) print list

OBSERVE: partitions not listed, error message:
Error: end of file while reading Success                                  
parted: invalid token: list

Expected Result:
Stateful and log partitions of recovery drive mounted when inserted in existing Chrome OS device.

parted lists 12 standard Chrome OS partitions on image.

Actual Result:
No partitions mounted for USB device with BUDDY image.

parted cannot read USB image's partitions

How frequently does this problem reproduce? (Always, sometimes, hard to
reproduce?)
Always (confirmed issue is not due to USB issues)

What is the impact to the user, and is there a workaround? If so, what is
it?
I don't have a BUDDY device available to me today but can attempt recovery on one tomorrow to confirm if it's working with current image or completely fails. In any case, seems to be some level of corruption of recovery image.