K3 Noob's guide to debricking through ATK :D

[qlob]

Originally Posted by felonwan

I put a Chinese edition in the wiki: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/K3noobdebrickatk/zh-cn, but I don't know how to link it there: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/K3noobdebrickatk. Can anybody help?
In this Chinese edition, I separated the preparation part (downloading the images and installing the softwares) and the part using ATK to program the flash. I also add the method of checking battery using a LED and a resistor in the last part.

Thanks! You're amazing!

[uriziel01]

Successfully unbricked K3 with this method, THANK YOU

1)My Image also had a CRC error every time I downloaded it but after flashing the Kindle using it, everything went just fine, no single problem.

2)If you a re running Win32 and still get the USB error in ATK, just restart your system, it helped for me.

[qlob]

Interesting....... Seems like almost all compressed kindle images get a CRC error..... I wonder why...

[twobob]

because either they are all compressed badly, or they are all downloading the same broken image...

That info would be handy to know.

[hawhill]

I guess a slightly incomplete image (i.e. some bits at the end are missing) would at maximum hurt one file, maybe even nothing at all, in the filesystem within. The decompressing program just needs to be tough enough to leave the "broken" file for the user and not delete it after determining the broken CRC.

[qlob]

maybe the original 3.3 image still works then... i have it targz ed and whenever i untargz it i get CRC error...

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by qlob

Interesting....... Seems like almost all compressed kindle images get a CRC error..... I wonder why...

That can be a browser problem, or a problem with a download accelerator. I have downloaded and tested the images in the simple debricking pastebin, and they do not have CRC errors when I test them.

Please try downloading them using different software, and try again. And PM me a link for ones that fail for you so I can retest them. Thanks.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by qlob

maybe the original 3.3 image still works then... i have it targz ed and whenever i untargz it i get CRC error...

Please PM me a link to the bad image you downloaded. Thanks.

[qlob]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Please PM me a link to the bad image you downloaded. Thanks.

I'm talking about Dasmoover's original 3.3 image, that I rescued from a wiped harddrive. (The one I could never get to upload successfully.)

[twobob]

well. in terms of provenance, I would list that under "Sketchy at best".

Lesson learned.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by qlob

I'm talking about Dasmoover's original 3.3 image, that I rescued from a wiped harddrive. (The one I could never get to upload successfully.)

Is this the same machine with which you had so much trouble?

I think it is probably time for you to run memtest86 on it:
http://www.memtest.org/

Memory errors would go a long way to explaining all the troubles you have had, if they all involve a single machine.

[qlob]

Originally Posted by knc1

Is this the same machine with which you had so much trouble?
I think it is probably time for you to run memtest86 on it:
http://www.memtest.org/
Memory errors would go a long way to explaining all the troubles you have had, if they all involve a single machine.

Later as it turns out, I did have hardware problems.. that computer is another project i need to get round to it.... someday...... Now im using a horrible "corporate" workstation with 768MB of RAM, until i fix the nicer machine's BIOS

These gremlins really hate me....

[knc1]

In the case of a file compressed by gzip - trust the crc error message to mean the file is bad.

For gzip / gunzip, if the file is too short, its message states that the file ended too soon not that it has a crc error.

For a tar (Tape ARchive) format file, the last block is supposed to be a single empty header followed by a single empty data block.
GNU tar will warn you if that is missing, some other implementations of tar will not.

That format was intended so that you could back-space the tape drive over the last two blocks and continue recording an extension to it.

[qlob]

Okay. Wont use it then.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by qlob

I'm talking about Dasmoover's original 3.3 image, that I rescued from a wiped harddrive. (The one I could never get to upload successfully.)

Recovering a file from a wiped HDD (i.e. undeleting) usually fails if the file was fragmented. Windows does not defrag chunks larger than 64MB as I recall, so the image was likely fragmented and therefore did not recover correctly. And even if it did, recovered files are often extended to fill the last 4KB file allocation block. So good or bad, it would probably still have a bad CRC.

File carving utilities are usually more successful when recovering media files with known file signatures and layouts, but even then fail to recover correctly plenty often. I have done a huge amount of data recovery for myself and others. I even own the rather expensive hard drive platter swapping tools. So I believe that I know what I am talking about in this post...