Bricked Kindle Touch

[Crevecoeur]

Originally Posted by linuxuser

I have not found simple instructions to build the serial cable they are talking about so far. It would be helpful have an instruction.

The necessary parts for my cable won't be here until tomorrow, but here are the steps I have been able to glean from various posts on these forums:

1. You need a 1.8v TTL to USB cable to connect the small serial port inside your Kindle Touch to your computer. I probably don’t need to tell you this, given that you are a former technician, but others may also read this who are less tech savvy: it is important that you use a cable of the correct voltage or you might damage the serial port. Molex produces one with the model number TTL-232RG-VREG1V8-WE. A web search should reveal a few different places where you can purchase one. They are going for about $25 currently. EDIT: yifanlu, who is far more knowledgeable about this process than I, says (in the next post below) that he uses a 3.3v USB to TTL adapter with his Kindle 4 and it works. While I obviously cannot confirm this, I bow to his expertise.

2. While there is a USB plug on one end of this cable, the other end is just the wires. Some people have had success simply holding the wires to the correct pins on the serial port. Others have soldered the wires to the port. A more stable, safe, and long-term solution would be to make a plug for that end. You can do this by purchasing small terminals (ends) for the wires that fit into a rectangular housing unit. Someone found that Molex also produces a housing unit (78172-0003) and crimp terminals (78172-0410) that fit the Kindle Touch serial port almost perfectly (certainly better than holding them by hand!). You should also be able to find these pretty easily.

3. The terminals in question being crimp terminals, you will need a crimping tool to use them properly. Here is a detailed explanation of the overall process, along with some recommendations for tools. Apparently the custom tool you need to do this job properly is about $300, and there is the additional complication that the wires from the cable are of a lower gauge (and thus greater diameter) than the range given for the terminals (24AWG and 28-30AWG respectively). This may or may not matter. As I mentioned above, I am getting a more experienced friend to handle this part of the job, and this may involve use of a crimp tool and/or soldering iron. He says he will know when he actually has a look at the parts. (I will not be spending $300 to fix a device that I can buy new for less than half that price.)

4. It is necessary that the correct wires are connected to the correct serial port pins. If you open the back of the Kindle Touch and are looking at the serial port at the bottom pins from left to right are TxD (transmit), RxD (receive), and GND (ground) (EDIT: facing the back of the Kindle, with the Kindle upside down). One poster mentioned that on his cable the wires that needed to be connected to these pins were Yellow, Orange, and Black, respectively. This datasheet (pdf) would seem to confirm that this is standard for this type of cable.

Others who have already gone through this process may want to add to or correct what I have written, but those are the details as far as I understand them at this point.

[yifanlu]

I did not pay $25 for my adapter. I'm using a 3.3V USB to TTL adapter for $2.99 on ebay and it works on the Kindle 4.

[Crevecoeur]

Originally Posted by yifanlu

I did not pay $25 for my adapter. I'm using a 3.3V USB to TTL adapter for $2.99 on ebay and it works on the Kindle 4.

That’s good to know. While I think others have also mentioned that they used cables of the “wrong” voltage, I didn’t want to take the risk.

[yifanlu]

Originally Posted by linuxuser

Hi all. Two days ago to buy a new kindle touch and had no better idea than trying to crack this. Now I have a brick.

How did I get this?
Well, I wanted to apply jailbreack using the "Method 3" according to next link "http://yifan.lu/p/kindle-touch-jailbreak/."
This launches the Kindle on diagnostic mode, after this and in the last step which is explained in the link (... 14. Select "D) Disable Diagnostics" and "Q) To continue "...) emerged the following error:" device_nfo.xml not found ".
To try to avoid the problem of repeat 2 more times from step 10 to 14. After this at one point he turned off the kindle and never lit anymore.

How does kindle behave now?
- I can not mount this (ls / dev / sd *).
- Not boot after hours of charging in more than one pc.
- The LED only turn on when you connect the USB cable and always with the color "amber"(Kindle discharged). I never can see the green light (charged).
- If I connect the USB cable to a PC with WinXP, it detects the device as a "Kindle", but windows can not find the driver. This only happens after holding down the power button a few seconds.

I am a Gentoo user and I graduated as electronic technician in my high school. I have not found simple instructions to build the serial cable they are talking about so far. It would be helpful have an instruction.
I am really disappointed, the Kindle cost me a good sum andand I want to make it work at all costs, but i need help.

There chance to save the kindle? how?

From and to thank everyone for the help they can give me

Did steps 1-3 not work? What version of the kindle are you running?

[linuxuser]

Originally Posted by yifanlu

Did steps 1-3 not work? What version of the kindle are you running?

is a Kindle Touch v 5.0.0 if I mistake.

[linuxuser]

Originally Posted by Crevecoeur

The necessary parts for my cable won't be here until tomorrow, but here are the steps I have been able to glean from various posts on these forums:

1. You need a 1.8v TTL to USB cable to connect the small serial port inside your Kindle Touch to your computer. I probably don’t need to tell you this, given that you are a former technician, but others may also read this who are less tech savvy: it is important that you use a cable of the correct voltage or you might damage the serial port. Molex produces one with the model number TTL-232RG-VREG1V8-WE. A web search should reveal a few different places where you can purchase one. They are going for about $25 currently. EDIT: yifanlu, who is far more knowledgeable about this process than I, says (in the next post below) that he uses a 3.3v USB to TTL adapter with his Kindle 4 and it works. While I obviously cannot confirm this, I bow to his expertise.

2. While there is a USB plug on one end of this cable, the other end is just the wires. Some people have had success simply holding the wires to the correct pins on the serial port. Others have soldered the wires to the port. A more stable, safe, and long-term solution would be to make a plug for that end. You can do this by purchasing small terminals (ends) for the wires that fit into a rectangular housing unit. Someone found that Molex also produces a housing unit (78172-0003) and crimp terminals (78172-0410) that fit the Kindle Touch serial port almost perfectly (certainly better than holding them by hand!). You should also be able to find these pretty easily.

3. The terminals in question being crimp terminals, you will need a crimping tool to use them properly. Here is a detailed explanation of the overall process, along with some recommendations for tools. Apparently the custom tool you need to do this job properly is about $300, and there is the additional complication that the wires from the cable are of a lower gauge (and thus greater diameter) than the range given for the terminals (24AWG and 28-30AWG respectively). This may or may not matter. As I mentioned above, I am getting a more experienced friend to handle this part of the job, and this may involve use of a crimp tool and/or soldering iron. He says he will know when he actually has a look at the parts. (I will not be spending $300 to fix a device that I can buy new for less than half that price.)

4. It is necessary that the correct wires are connected to the correct serial port pins. If you open the back of the Kindle Touch and are looking at the serial port at the bottom the pins from left to right are TxD (transmit), RxD (receive), and GND (ground). One poster mentioned that on his cable the wires that needed to be connected to these pins were Orange, Yellow, and Black, respectively. This datasheet (pdf) would seem to confirm that this is standard for this type of cable.

Others who have already gone through this process may want to add to or correct what I have written, but those are the details as far as I understand them at this point.

Where is the serial port input in the Kindle Touch v5.0.0?.
Can it be the 3-pin connector you see in the next links?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hondamarlboro/6441335275/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hondama...n/photostream/

[Crevecoeur]

Yes, and although I have not successfully unbricked mine, I can tell you that what I said above about the pins and wires is WRONG. I misread an earlier post by rastik. In the first picture (the kindle is right side up) the pins from left to right are GND, RxD, TxD. In the second picture (the kindle is upside down) the pins from left to right are TxD, RxD, GND. You need to connect the black wire to GND, the orange wire to RxD, and the yellow to TxD.

I have been able at least to determine what my Kindle is doing. For some reason it is caught in a loop respawning xorg.conf.

[linuxuser]

Originally Posted by Crevecoeur

Yes, and although I have not successfully unbricked mine, I can tell you that what I said above about the pins and wires is WRONG. I misread an earlier post by rastik. In the first picture (the kindle is right side up) the pins from left to right are GND, RxD, TxD. In the second picture (the kindle is upside down) the pins from left to right are TxD, RxD, GND. You need to connect the black wire to GND, the orange wire to RxD, and the yellow to TxD.

I have been able at least to determine what my Kindle is doing. For some reason it is caught in a loop respawning xorg.conf.

Thank you very much now I understand where and how to connect the cable!

Another thing: If I understand correctly the cable 1.8v TTL to USB has an electronic circuit for communicate the PC with the Kindle through the RS232 interface(com ports). Is a way to have a serial port on a PC that does not. But this is not necessary if you got a serial port in your pc. Now if you have it you can use the next connector:

DB9 connector: http://students.spsu.edu/auvrobot/Su...Serialport.png

This means I can build a cable with a DB9 (serial port connector)
that connects to the PC using 5(GND),2(Rx) and 3(Tx) pins, and the other end to kindle touch.

Kindle: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hondamarlboro/6441335275/ (from left to right are GND, RxD, TxD)

otherwise, if you has not got a serial port in your pc you can use a USB to Serial port adapter as TTL-232RG-VREG1V8-WE cable adapter.

Question for everyone: my assertion is true?

[hawhill]

*If* your PC has a RS232 port (with classic DB9 or even DB25 connectors), do *NOT* use it. It is specified for 5-15V and indeed 12V is/has been common. As for the 1.8V input levels: they will also be likely to go unnoticed because for the PC they are to low.

Use designated 1.8V or risk some fried chips (and a broken device) and try your luck with a 3.3V adapter. You can get them as USB-serial interfaces.

[Crevecoeur]

I have already sunk so much time into this that I am giving up for now, at least until someone can come up with a way to unbrick the device in USB HID mode. My friend constructed the cable beautifully, but the wires were in the wrong order. When I realized this mistake, I attempted to just hold the wires to the pins, and had some success at first, but this decreased over time, making wonder if I shorted out the wires or somehow damaged the pins.

The lesson I learned from all of this is jailbreaking a Kindle Touch is emphatically NOT like jailbreaking an iOS device, where there is always that convenient option to restore the device to factory settings in iTunes. I would strongly recommend that others learn from my mistake and do not jailbreak a Kindle Touch at this point, unless you are fairly competent at electronics, know someone who is, or would like to spend a lot of time learning. I would like to have that kind of time, but I don't. It is all the more frustrating given that I feel I was so close (I managed to get the device to mount the USB drive, but only once). Someone really needs to write a clear, step-by-step guide “for dummies,” like myself. This is what I was trying to start above with my description of the cables.

I hope others have more success than I did. While I didn't unbrick the device, I am sincerely thankful for all of your help.

[Crevecoeur]

Okay, okay, who am I kidding? After a few hours to let my frustration die down, I realize that I am not going to give up this easily. Can someone tell me, if I actually manage to get the USB drive portion of the disk to mount again, is there a way for me to restore the whole root partition from there?

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by Crevecoeur

Okay, okay, who am I kidding? After a few hours to let my frustration die down, I realize that I am not going to give up this easily. Can someone tell me, if I actually manage to get the USB drive portion of the disk to mount again, is there a way for me to restore the whole root partition from there?

Yes. You can add ENABLE_DIAGS and boot to diags, and fix it from there. Diags mode can use a variation of ixtab's jailbreak, but diags boots partition 2, so runme.sh must mount partition 1 and modify the mounted partition instead of the root partition. Or, you can push a reverse shell as suggested in an ixtab post, and fix it manually over a USB network connection.

In the future, jailbreak and repair will be much easier using USB Recovery mode (USB HID). My bricked K4 that had corrupted ID information is all fixed now using a combination of USB HID mode and the serial port. In the future, the serial port will not be needed. Read this:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=407

When that code is complete, jailbreaking a kindle will be very like jailbreaking an iOS device.

Please do not consume Yifan Lu's time asking for personal help, or it will delay completion of this project. Thanks.

[yifanlu]

Please note that his kindle was unbricked because I led him step by step for days and he helped me test various methods, one of which eventually worked. I will not be able to everyone's hand down the bumpy path like this, so please sit still while I work on this tool.

[geekmaster]

And even after I was able to boot, there were complications that took lots of experimentation to resolve. We are still learning this stuff. But I did finally manage to resolve the last problem.

The solution I used required both USB Recovery mode (USB HID) and the internal serial port, and finally doing some fixes that could only be done from SSH in diagnostics mode.

Again, please give yifanlu some time to work on this project without distractions. Thanks.

P.S. I only posted this info after yifanlu posted his announcement, and to prevent people with bricked kindles from doing anything desperate or risky that may case additional damage. Please wait.

[Crevecoeur]

Hey, no need to belabor the point about not bothering yifanlu while he works on this. This is great news and certainly worth waiting for. In the meantime, I will continue working with serial port method as time permits.

Thank you both (yifanlu and geekmaster) for all the work you've put into this. My own frustration just stems from the fact that I am eager to get back to actually using my Kindle (I just wanted to change some fonts, and everything was almost perfect when it bricked!).