Questions about undemo-ing a Kindle DX graphite

[NiLuJe]

@twobob: You need a password because you end up in front of getty's login shell prompt on the serial console .

(And there's also the password to export the FS over USB when in recovery mode on these devices).

[twobob]

ah there you go then! : ) see told you I was wrong.

I like to be right about that at least

[megacoupe]

Originally Posted by knc1

Would you please post --name/rank/serial number-- ah, Make and Model at least.
What little I can see in that picture, it looks like one that can be optioned for either 3.3volt or 5volt ttl levels.
The Kindles are neither, they are 1.8volt ttl.

You may have just tested if the serial i/o port is 3.3 (5.0) volt tolerant.
I would not expect them to be, since the Freescale has different output drivers for 1.8 and 3.3 volt on its UART ports.

With the Make and Model (even better, a link to the part page) I could say more specifically what the situation is.

Unfortunately, the listing I bought the part from doesn't offer much information: http://www.ebay.com/itm/180953407401

I was pointed to the listing by stangri, who was successful at getting a DXG out of demo mode, so the adapter *should* work.

Note the two different serial configurations used by the i.MX31 devices:
Downloader mode: 57500,8,n,2
U-Boot & Linux console: 115000,8,n,1

The ATK application **may** only do serial I/O to **com** ports, if your USB-to-serial adapter does not have a driver to map a USB serial port to a **com** port - check at the vendor's site for that sort of driver.

In Win 7, "Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port" is detected and mapped to COM4. I can go to Properties and set the values you listed above. If I change to those values, will ATK be able to communicate? Which mode do I need to go to?

On another note, is the DXG a i.MX31 device? I ask because I've been selected the i.MX35_T02 option in ATK...

You would be much better off running a Linux LiveCD than dealing with passing USB devices into and outof a VM instance.

I might try that.

[megacoupe]

Originally Posted by twobob

dmesg | grep usb

will dig through that lot for you from dmesg...

I haven't actually debricked one yet so...

Win 7 64 bit... probably a signed driver issue. that is a total guess but I would think 64 bit windows was a poor choice - It's probably a driver issue in Win

*throw rocks now*

Windows XP Virtualized - hmm I dont recall much about the few times I played with this but more or less I recall it living in a "wrapper" - again I would have to think this is a poor choice

I'm so lost at this point, I don't know if it's a driver issue or a bad physical connection. So far, I've been able to use the USB port on the kindle and pass it to the virtualized XP with no problem (other usb devices as well). Worst case scenario, I have an old laptop running Vista 32-bit I can use.

I assume you have minicom installed.
In fact I wont assume that...

Actually, I do have it installed, following the instructions from stranger_st's post.

Here's a video that is actually for a 3 but he uses the serial cable in linux

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...74&postcount=1

Watch that...

Here's a translation of that video actions in English by me (thanks GM for corrections)

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...7&postcount=22

I've watched the video but I'll take a look at it again...

And since I haven't received a clear answer yet: which is the best OS to use for this project? Or do I need to use several?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by megacoupe

And since I haven't received a clear answer yet: which is the best OS to use for this project? Or do I need to use several?

The answer to that, here, is the same answer when doing any technical work:
The OS that you understand the best.

Sometimes you might have to use several.
It all depends on the job, the OS and your understanding of how to solve problems using it.
Only you know that third parameter, only you can answer the second question.

[megacoupe]

Okay, so I've attempted to follow twobob's post here, which is just a translation of seaniko7's video on youtube.

I couldn't run "sudo apt-get install cu minicom" from a liveCD or a pendrive with Ubuntu (got the error message "E: unable to locate minicom"). However, I was able to get it to run in a VirtualBoxed Ubuntu.

I get up to the point in the video/instructions where you run minicom and should see an output in the Terminal window. I run minicom and get no output. The question is: why not?

If it's any help, I configured minicom the same exact way as seaniko7 does in his video. I also ran "lsusb" in the terminal window and it seems that the DXG is detected (or at least the adapter is):

Bus 001 Device 001: 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
Bus 001 Device 003: 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port

Am I correct in entering "/dev/ttyUSB0" in minicom's serial port settings? Changing the "0" after USB to 1-3 gave an error saying it couldn't find the device, so I don't know what else to try.

[knc1]

Enter: dmesg
After plugging in the adapter cable.
The messages will tell you which /dev/ttyUSB# devices where assigned.
It may tell you that more than one was assigned.
Select in your copy of minicom each of the devices listed, one of them will work (the other is a control channel to the converter chip)

[megacoupe]

Originally Posted by knc1

Enter: dmesg
After plugging in the adapter cable.
The messages will tell you which /dev/ttyUSB# devices where assigned.
It may tell you that more than one was assigned.
Select in your copy of minicom each of the devices listed, one of them will work (the other is a control channel to the converter chip)

After entering "dmesg", I find that the pl2303 converter is listed as ttyUSB0.

However, I still don't see any output in minicom. Perhaps the issue is with the DXG; once I have minicom open and monitoring, what should I do with the DXG? Reboot? Go to recovery mode?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by megacoupe

After entering "dmesg", I find that the pl2303 converter is listed as ttyUSB0.

However, I still don't see any output in minicom. Perhaps the issue is with the DXG; once I have minicom open and monitoring, what should I do with the DXG? Reboot? Go to recovery mode?

Try the safest thing first, either a re-start or a re-boot.
Both U-Boot and the Kernel are very "chatty" about what they are doing.

Also, not mentioned yet, be sure to check the minicom configuration options for flow control
Disable both software and hardware flow control.

With the wire ends of the adapter NOT connected to anything, type on your keyboard, you should see nothing on the screen.
If you do see the character on the screen - disable the character echo in minicom ;

Now, connect the Tx and Rx leads of your adapter together -
type into the emulator, observe the characters appearing on the screen.

If they don't appear on the screen with the adapter "looped back" to itself and character echo disabled in the configuration -
Something is not right with the adapter setup, check the instructions for the adapter board.

[megacoupe]

Originally Posted by knc1

Try the safest thing first, either a re-start or a re-boot.
Both U-Boot and the Kernel are very "chatty" about what they are doing.

Okay, so I've configured minicom to 115200, 8-n-1.

Also, not mentioned yet, be sure to check the minicom configuration options for flow control
Disable both software and hardware flow control.

Already had it set that way.

With the wire ends of the adapter NOT connected to anything, type on your keyboard, you should see nothing on the screen.
If you do see the character on the screen - disable the character echo in minicom ;

I couldn't find the option for disabling character echo in minicom, but in any case, nothing shows up on the screen when I type with the computer keyboard.

Now, connect the Tx and Rx leads of your adapter together -
type into the emulator, observe the characters appearing on the screen.

If they don't appear on the screen with the adapter "looped back" to itself and character echo disabled in the configuration -
Something is not right with the adapter setup, check the instructions for the adapter board.

The letters DO appear on the screen, so I'm guessing my adapter is fine.

Still no output when rebooting the DXG though...

[knc1]

Good work,
You drove a wedge into the series sequence of things that might be wrong.

On one side: from adapter wires to display screen - Working.
On the other side: connection to Kindle and Kindle itself - Somewhere there lies the problem.

[megacoupe]

Just tried to connect the three wires to another demo unit I have... minicom works! However, it is asking for a "kindle login." I have the recovery password from kindlediagnostictool, but I have no idea what the login is. Any ideas?

EDIT: After some digging, it seems that the kindle login is "root" and the password is fiona****. However, typing on my computer keyboard shows no output on minicom. Also, pressing "enter" seems to have no effect. What is going on?

[geekmaster]

The passwords are really only three hex digits. For DES hashes, you can type all the extra random characters you want beyond 8 characters though...

Try leaving off the extra character.

And passwords normally do not echo...

[megacoupe]

Okay, this is where I am so far:

-minicom is running
-I have the rootfs.img file I needed
-After entering my login and password, I'm at a prompt in the serial console that says:

[root@kindle root]#

I enter the command: dd if=/mnt/us/rootfs.img of=/dev/mmcblk0p1

and I get an error message stating:

dd: can't open '/mnt/us/rootfs.img': Stale NFS file handle

Does this mean the DXG's USB drive is located elsewhere? When I run fdisk -l in another terminal window, I see that the Kindle is designated as /dev/sdb1. Should I perhaps try the following command instead:

dd if=/dev/sdb1/rootfs.img of=/dev/mmcblk0p1

???


EDIT:

Nevermind, apparently I had to unmount the USB/mount storage part

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by megacoupe

...
Nevermind, apparently I had to unmount the USB/mount storage part

Yeah, you do not want to write a raw partition while its file system is still mounted. But the USB drive is a different partition, so that seems a bit strange. Hmm...

At least you got that puzzle figured out.