PW3 Quick help with debrick, format partition 4?

[schuhumi]

Hi,

sooo, last prime day I got a PW3, the day after it I bricked it

I wanted to try chroot. First I tried Arch because I'm a dumbass - the kernel obviosly is way too old for that. Then I saw this "UPDATE" hint under the debootstrap boxes: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Deb...t_architecture Thus I made a jessie image.

And here is where the fuckup happened: I connected my Kindle to usb, while the Arch image was still mounted, and excanged the image file. In the wiki it says "This seems to be safe as long as userstore is not used as USB drive" (below "Setup Chroot Environment" box: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Deb...ot_Environment ). Well I can tell you that it is certainly not safe to use it as usb drive while the image is mounted

So fortunately I can still log into the kindle via serial connection, and it seems like my partition 4 got wrecked:

[root@kindle root]# fsck /dev/mmcblk0p
/dev/mmcblk0p1  /dev/mmcblk0p2  /dev/mmcblk0p3  /dev/mmcblk0p4
[root@kindle root]# fsck /dev/mmcblk0p1
fsck 1.41.10 (10-Feb-2009)
e2fsck 1.41.10 (10-Feb-2009)
/dev/mmcblk0p1: clean, 5024/14520 files, 314857/450000 blocks
[root@kindle root]# fsck /dev/mmcblk0p2
fsck 1.41.10 (10-Feb-2009)
e2fsck 1.41.10 (10-Feb-2009)
/dev/mmcblk0p2: clean, 1084/2112 files, 35710/64000 blocks
[root@kindle root]# fsck /dev/mmcblk0p3
fsck 1.41.10 (10-Feb-2009)
e2fsck 1.41.10 (10-Feb-2009)
/dev/mmcblk0p3 is mounted.  

WARNING!!!  Running e2fsck on a mounted filesystem may cause
SEVERE filesystem damage.

Do you really want to continue (y/n)? no

check aborted.
[root@kindle root]# fsck /dev/mmcblk0p4
fsck 1.41.10 (10-Feb-2009)
e2fsck 1.41.10 (10-Feb-2009)
fsck.ext2: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks...
fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/mmcblk0p4

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

[root@kindle root]#

My root partition was read only at the time, since I moved my mount point to /tmp, I hope it is still all fine. According to the wiki ( https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kin...ing#Partitions ) partition 4 is the user (/mnt/us) partition, and it's content can safely be deleted. So can I just reformat it and my kindle might work again? One weird thing is that fsck seems to think it's an ext2 partition, while the wiki says FAT32

I'm completely new to all this Kindle stuff, so hint would make me very happy


Attached

• dmesg
• bootlog
• bootlog with lots of filename errors I got when I started debugging
• Bonus: My Ghetto USB serial converter, made from a stm32nucleo and a level shifter from discrete transistors.. And today I also put a serial port into my kindle

[schuhumi]

Sooo, I found this article: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Repartition_the_Kindle

Couldn't hold my temptation and a quick

[root@kindle root]# mkfs.vfat /dev/mmcblk0p4 
mkfs.vfat 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
[root@kindle root]#

fixed it indeed!

So I'll get KUAL und usbnetwork to work again and then make backups of all the partitions first thing

Edit: In case someone has to do the same: Reset the Kindle from its device menu after formating, it fixed mounting issues for me

[knc1]

There is a script posted (by me) for the purpose of making re-usable backup files of everything.

All you had to do was clear (zero) the first four sectors of /mnt/us and then re-boot the device.
That way, the user store would be rebuilt with the special collection of options that it needs (which your post shows you did not do yourself).