I just bought the one plus phone. It comes with Color OS which is mostly in chinese and I want to convert it to Cyanongenmod.
There are several guides on the web: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H60fcm0ujqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDKOEtN9pbo for example.
BUT, each time I try to install the file from sd I get "installation failure" message without any further explanation.
Can anyone help me with installing this OS?
I don't have a OnePlus One, so take this answer with a grain of salt.
Make sure you are installing the .zip and NOT the .img factory image file from Color OS's recovery mode.
If that doesn't work, you might want to try one of the nightly builds to see if it works instead.
If you STILL do not have success, you may want to try installing with fastboot instead of the .zip-- note that this will require the .img factory image file, not the .zip file. The steps for fastboot mode on the OnePlus One are: 1. Turn the phone off. 2. Hold volume up + power until the "fastboot" screen appears.
You can read more about using fastboot at the cyanogenmod wiki: wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Fastboot
To ensure a smooth boot after you flash the new system, don't forget to do a "factory reset" to erase all the previous personal data when switching OSes... that is an option that should be available somewhere in the recovery mode. Good luck!
As far as I know you can't use the default recovery, you need to flash twrp or cwm. When you did that you should be able to flash Cyanogenmod the normal way. Be sure to install the .zip and not the .img as @fattire already said. Always delete the data and cache in the recovery before flashing.
owner of a OPO here. I had the same problem. What I did to solve this was to flash an older version of the CM build then updating to the newest from there. I think they changed some stuff between two of their releases which makes it impossible to flash the brand new CM over ColorOS. I flashed 25R then 33R to convert mine.
