[twobob]

If I had to guess I would said "messed up eink controller", or "broken screen": Utterly unlinked to hacking, rooting or any other software based alteration.

If I had to guess further I would suggest; a power surge; it was dropped/put under pressure; Or the part(s) died of natural causes.

'At the end of the day' if you didn't do any of those "Physical damage" things, list it under "Not my fault" and bin it.

Unrecoverable would jump into my mind.

If I HAD to try something? I would get it in usbdownloader mode and see if at the very least the "guts" were still operational. AFAIK that/those parts dying would require a full new motherboard and/or screen - which would put it being revived out of sensible price range.

Regards,
And sympthies

If you REALLY don't CARE about the visual output... Say to use it for playing back tunes..
and usbdownloader mode is operational.

Probably getting it to boot via ssh and a good old wiping with something like kubrick could possibly be an option.

Obviously you would be working completely blind in the DIAGS section of the process but that has been done before...

Then. Once it actually "Booted", screen or no, you could instigate playback via aplay - or even perhaps natively with enough ninja.

These are all not SIMPLE options though and fully reliant on usbdownloader mode working at the very least. Sufficed to say it will never be the same again without "parts" and "labour".