Well, unfortunately that didn't help. Oddly enough, the original card did read in another card reader I had sitting around but hadn't tried before; I still cloned the contents to a new card in case the original was faulty, though. (Also, for what it's worth, the Glo HD does have the serial number printed on the bottom edge - it's just faint enough on mine that it's really, really easy to miss. None of the motherboard markings seem to have any relation to the device serial number.)
Please do let me know if I should kick off to a different thread at this point - I'm getting a bit off the topic of card images - but my current state is:
- screen does not show any response, no matter what I try. (It's currently on the normal "Powered Off" display with the cover of "Rage of Angels" behind it, as though it had been powered off cleanly.)
- power light does not come on, no matter what I try.
- the device does appear to take a charge (at least, it gets pretty warm around the bottom of the motherboard - presumably power circuitry - when left connected to USB power).
- the internal connectors for the screen don't appear to be loose or damaged at all.
I have neither the energy nor the skill to hook something up to the serial header, but before I give up, I'd like to check a couple of things:
- if a healthy Glo HD was booted with the SD card removed, should it get to the dancing squares, or would it not show any change on the screen at all?
- does the power light normally come on when charging, or anything like that? The user manual is unclear whether there's any feedback other than the battery indicator in the top right of the screen.
- does the power light come on immediately when pressed (ie, before the system boots), or is it only active after boot has started (eg, wouldn't work if there was no SD card present)?
Any feedback or advice would be appreciated.