My k2i can't sideload ebooks :(

[mike_bike_kite]

I've owned my kindle 2i since it came out and love it however I've just started having a problem and can't side load books onto the device. I can still buy books from Amazon and I could read all the books that were on the device.

My problem:I can't add books to the device other than by shoping directly through Amazon. I now get a windows popup saying "scan and fix kindle" - I've tried ticking each option & no errors are reported. Calibre can see the device but it often gets stuck trying to pass books to the device. It often shows the following error message:
"error communicating with device"
"calibre, version 0.9.33
ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

[Errno 13] Permission denied

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\device.py", line 85, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\device.py", line 557, in _upload_books
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\usbms\driver.py", line 267, in upload_books
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\usbms\cli.py", line 59, in put_file
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied"

I can move files back and forth using windows explorer but I can't seem to read the books that I move across.

What's changed: I hadn't been using it for about 6 months as my wife suddenly discovered that it was actually quite good for reading on. I used to use Calibre to add books while my wife tends to shop directly from Amazon. However I bought a new PC last month so I needed to install Calibre again. Calibre recognises my library and it recognises the K2i. The device did fill up a short while back and I needed to delete books manually to free up space - it's now about half full.

In desperation I tried resetting it to factory settings (I lost all the books on the device) but the problem didn't go away.

Is there anything else I can do?
Is my k2i finally toast?
Am I just getting senile?

Mike

[HarryT]

The storage partition on your Kindle is corrupt - the most common cause of this is disconnecting the Kindle from your PC without using the "Safely Remove Hardware" option.

To fix it:

1. Connect your Kindle to the PC via USB.
2. Open a Windows Explorer window.
3. Right click on the "Kindle" drive and select "Properties".
4. In the "Properties" windows select the "Tools" tab.
5. Click the "Check Now" button in the "Error Checking" section of the dialog.

(These instructions are for Windows 7, but the idea is the same in other versions).

[HarryT]

You know, I'm always happy to help, but saying "thank you" would be nice just occasionally.

[mike_bike_kite]

I'm so sorry Harry, too many posts on too many forums. You're quite right for pulling me up and I offer my humble apologies. Thank you.

Your suggestion though leads to the same windows popup that says "scan and fix kindle" but then reports there's nothing to fix. Is there any other approach I can take?

Mike

[HarryT]

You can try to reformat the partition (as FAT32). If that doesn't work, then I'm afraid you're probably out of luck, although you could try asking for assistance in the "Kindle Developer's Corner" forum (a sub-forum of this one).

Before doing that, though, let's try to rule out other potential causes. Have you tried using a different USB cable, in case that's where the fault lies?

[mike_bike_kite]

Good point about the cable, I did try another cable at the time but it produced the same symptoms. Interestingly my wife brought it to me today and said it had run out of battery. I recharged it. I also saw a post suggesting doing a "chkdsk /f" from the windows command line (I think it was a post by you as well). It didn't report any errors

H:\>chkdsk /f
The type of the file system is FAT32.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first.
ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.
Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N) y
Volume dismounted. All opened handles to this volume are now invalid.
Volume Kindle created 01/01/2098 20:53
Volume Serial Number is 0001-25AE
Windows is verifying files and folders...
File and folder verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

1,599,041,536 bytes total disk space.
4,096 bytes in 1 hidden files.
57,344 bytes in 14 folders.
8,933,376 bytes in 50 files.
1,590,042,624 bytes available on disk.

4,096 bytes in each allocation unit.
390,391 total allocation units on disk.
388,194 allocation units available on disk.

H:\>

but when I tried connecting to the device using calibre and transferring a book it seemed to work fine. Perhaps running the chkdsk fixed it, perhaps letting it run out of juice fixed it but it seems to be working at the moment. To be fair this is the only issue I've had with the thing since I bought it years back so I'm not going to complain.

I'll report back if the problem reoccurs but thank you for helping.

Mike