Quote:
Originally Posted by TBennettcc
NiLuJe: How do I do that? I'm sort of uncomfortable running commands that erase anything, as it's not exactly behaving properly, and I'm worried about bricking it even further. I've got one more trick up my sleeve at the moment, and if that doesn't work, I'd appreciate it if you could either tell me (or point me to the posts) which describe what you're wanting me to do, step-by-step.
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#1 The Kindles are *nix systems, not Windows systems.
*nix systems use a "single root" file system, independent of the number of devices that provide the backing store.
Windows systems use a "multiple root" file system, one file tree pre backing store.
#2 With command line access to the Kindle's system (such as serial port, telnet, ssh, ...) you can find what devices are the backing store of the file system tree by entering the 'mount' command without any arguments.
On your Kindle, you will find (among others) that:
/ is mounted on /dev/mmcblk0p1 (if running 'main") or /dev/mmcblk0p2 (if running 'diags')
These are the respective main parts of the system image, typically running write protected.
/mnt/us (and its associated stack of systems) is mounted on /dev/mmcblk0p4
Visible to the user as the root of USB storage over the USB cable when the Kindle is in "mass storage" mode.
This is the persistent storage available to the user for books and other things.
/var/local is mounted on /dev/mmcblk0p3
This is the persistent storage sub-tree used by the system to maintain user application related state ("persistent temp" might be a way to think of this sub-tree).
The above is not a complete description - but sufficient to describe what you are being asked to do.
Since the /var/local and the /mnt/us backing stores have file systems on them that are not write protected (and one of them is a FAT32 system) - - it is reasonable to expect that they may become "damaged" after leaving the factory.
To deal with that possibility, the system, as it boots up, tests the file systems on those two backing stores - -
If found to contain errors - it will try to fix them ;
If found to be "missing" - it will create new file systems on them ;
So "zero'ing" /dev/mmcblk0p3 (the backing store) or erasing the files of /var/local (the filesystem backed by /dev/mmcblk0p3) will cause the system to re-create it and all of the required files at the next system re-boot.
- - - - - -
Now that you have been able to enter "Diags" mode - -
**DO NOT**, repeat:
**DO NOT** select the "erase all" menu entry - -
it does just what it says, and you will then be screwed, big time.
Because not all of the device and user specific information is stored inside of the file systems - and "erase all" function does not preserve that information.