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9pb9 · 11-11-2014, 04:52 PM

Thank you! I am up and working again. I bought a used Kobo Wireless off of Ebay that worked for about 5 minutes before if froze and then lost its mind. When looking under Settings/Overview "Onboard Storage" was blank even though I could see the data via USB connection on my PC and no amount of power on/off cycles and factory resets would cure the problem.

For those of you thinking of taking the plunge, it was a bit scary but not too hard. I am a PC person and don't know Linux. Nor do I normally open up electronic things to work on them. There are probably real instructions somewhere, but this is basically what I did:

--Probably good to power off the Kobo though I don't know if it makes a lot of difference.

--The most difficult piece was opening the case. I now have marks around the edges where I damaged the plastic slightly trying to pry it open.

--Once open you need a tiny, tiny Philips head screwdriver to remove 4 screws that hold the screen in place. Then carefully slide the screen out. You will see the microSD card in its slot and you can easily remove it. I just left the battery connected and the screen stayed on the whole time--maybe I should have disconnected it but I figured I was better off touching as little as possible.

--I used an SD Adapter to load the microSD into my PC via the SD card slot (as I don't have a microSD slot in my PC). The PC immediately wanted to format the disc and I said NO!

--I downloaded a Raw Copy Tool from HDDGuru (found with a web search--don't know anything about them) and used it on my PC to first copy the microSD contents to a file as a backup. Then I used the program to copy the unzipped image file that Davidfor sent me to the microSD.

--Then I reassembled everything and powered the unit back up. It did show as being registered to someone and listed a bit more than the standard 101 books. This is probably old data from the original donor of the image file, so I did a factory reset and things are back to normal with the original free books and the user's guide available for reading.

I do see that the serial number is set to all zeros. Not sure how or if that needs to be fixed as I will probably never connect to anything other than Calibre.

11-11-2014, 04:52 PM	#197
9pb9 Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2014 Device: Kindle 2 and Kobo Wireless	Thank you! I am up and working again. I bought a used Kobo Wireless off of Ebay that worked for about 5 minutes before if froze and then lost its mind. When looking under Settings/Overview "Onboard Storage" was blank even though I could see the data via USB connection on my PC and no amount of power on/off cycles and factory resets would cure the problem. For those of you thinking of taking the plunge, it was a bit scary but not too hard. I am a PC person and don't know Linux. Nor do I normally open up electronic things to work on them. There are probably real instructions somewhere, but this is basically what I did: --Probably good to power off the Kobo though I don't know if it makes a lot of difference. --The most difficult piece was opening the case. I now have marks around the edges where I damaged the plastic slightly trying to pry it open. --Once open you need a tiny, tiny Philips head screwdriver to remove 4 screws that hold the screen in place. Then carefully slide the screen out. You will see the microSD card in its slot and you can easily remove it. I just left the battery connected and the screen stayed on the whole time--maybe I should have disconnected it but I figured I was better off touching as little as possible. --I used an SD Adapter to load the microSD into my PC via the SD card slot (as I don't have a microSD slot in my PC). The PC immediately wanted to format the disc and I said NO! --I downloaded a Raw Copy Tool from HDDGuru (found with a web search--don't know anything about them) and used it on my PC to first copy the microSD contents to a file as a backup. Then I used the program to copy the unzipped image file that Davidfor sent me to the microSD. --Then I reassembled everything and powered the unit back up. It did show as being registered to someone and listed a bit more than the standard 101 books. This is probably old data from the original donor of the image file, so I did a factory reset and things are back to normal with the original free books and the user's guide available for reading. I do see that the serial number is set to all zeros. Not sure how or if that needs to be fixed as I will probably never connect to anything other than Calibre.