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Lacrymology · 05-19-2012, 06:01 PM

Hello. My name is Tomás, I'm from Argentina, I'm a programmer, and my kindle just broke

My Kindle 3 screen got frozen today, when I was trying to get it off stand by mode. I'd actually decided not to hack about with this hardware, because I'd got it to read, and read's what I'd do with it (well, I jailbroke it and copied some wallpapers over, but that's it), but then it went all frozen on me, but since I'm in Argentina, and Amazon doesn't have an office here, well.. you know.

So I figured, it must be easy-ish to go and hard-reset this, I mean, I run linux, and most hardware can work.. but google proved almost rewardless, and plugging it in the USB port didn't even show the device.

After a lot of googling on both sides (the "official" way of hard-resetting it, and the hacker-side unbricking), I got to the "hold power for over a minute and wait" solution, which got the computer to recognize the device, but not the screen to work.

And on the hacker side, what I got is that the entry-point seems very high. I appear to need a very specific serial cable, with a home-made plug for it, no less, and that's just something that I *figured* I needed, because I have seen no "getting started" thread, and I don't even know if the hardware you use to hack around still holds the standard functionality

So, my questions here are:

1) is there any way I can figure out if my screen is actually out of it or if this is some kind of software issue?
1b) is there anywhere I can get a copy of the original system files, for a kindle 3, keyboard, 3g and a way I can restore them to the kindle, and reset it, blindly?
2) is there some thread that'll lay down the basic concepts of kindle hacking for me? Everything I've seen asumes a lot of previous knowledge

PS: Amazon themselves have agreed to send me a replacement, so this is more of a curiosity-driven request than a dire need to get my hardware working again. I'd like to tinkle a bit when I get the machine working. Also, it'll take the parcel over 3 weeks to get here, and I might need to pay a prohibitive amount for importing.

05-19-2012, 06:01 PM	#1
Lacrymology Member Posts: 12 Karma: 20542 Join Date: May 2012 Device: Kindle	Kindle 3 frozen, and get started hacking Hello. My name is Tomás, I'm from Argentina, I'm a programmer, and my kindle just broke My Kindle 3 screen got frozen today, when I was trying to get it off stand by mode. I'd actually decided not to hack about with this hardware, because I'd got it to read, and read's what I'd do with it (well, I jailbroke it and copied some wallpapers over, but that's it), but then it went all frozen on me, but since I'm in Argentina, and Amazon doesn't have an office here, well.. you know. So I figured, it must be easy-ish to go and hard-reset this, I mean, I run linux, and most hardware can work.. but google proved almost rewardless, and plugging it in the USB port didn't even show the device. After a lot of googling on both sides (the "official" way of hard-resetting it, and the hacker-side unbricking), I got to the "hold power for over a minute and wait" solution, which got the computer to recognize the device, but not the screen to work. And on the hacker side, what I got is that the entry-point seems very high. I appear to need a very specific serial cable, with a home-made plug for it, no less, and that's just something that I figured I needed, because I have seen no "getting started" thread, and I don't even know if the hardware you use to hack around still holds the standard functionality So, my questions here are: 1) is there any way I can figure out if my screen is actually out of it or if this is some kind of software issue? 1b) is there anywhere I can get a copy of the original system files, for a kindle 3, keyboard, 3g and a way I can restore them to the kindle, and reset it, blindly? 2) is there some thread that'll lay down the basic concepts of kindle hacking for me? Everything I've seen asumes a lot of previous knowledge PS: Amazon themselves have agreed to send me a replacement, so this is more of a curiosity-driven request than a dire need to get my hardware working again. I'd like to tinkle a bit when I get the machine working. Also, it'll take the parcel over 3 weeks to get here, and I might need to pay a prohibitive amount for importing.