No worries, shorttimer1. Got it working again
Thanks for your offer of a copy of the original Installer file.
I might take you up on it later, but I'm going to avoid TrekStor's Suites for a while, hehe.
And, no, I'm not using a mini SD card with it.
Even though my pc's wouldn't recognize it, my Mini still came on and worked.
I went to the home screen, then pressed the "Display main and sub menu" button
(the one right next to the Home button) to bring up the menu
which includes the "Explorer" option.
I noticed that the Digital Editions folder now had one file in it, where before
it had been empty.
I deleted this new file, machineinfo.ini (??), and tried
connecting it to a pc again. It worked! Everything is back to normal with it,
including Calibre recognizing it. Whew.
Curiously, all the files I had loaded (epubs, one Word doc, and a text file) are
all still there, even after doing a Format and Factory Reset. I was mistaken
that they had gotten wiped before, they had just disappeared from the home screen.
Maybe that machineinfo.ini file was preventing a clean reset.
After using TrekStor's Contact Us option, I signed into my Amazon.co.uk account and
easily started a return for replacement order which Amazon
acknowledged and accepted in just a few minutes.
They placed a replacement order and upgraded the shipping at no charge. And they
said they'd give me an 8GBP credit toward return shipping costs.
Then I fixed my Mini.
So I signed back into Amazon and was luckily able to cancel their replacement order. I was very impressed with how quickly Amazon got things done. Good to know in case of future problems within a 30 day return window.