[nores]

I dropped my Kindle Paperwhite recently and it seems to be broken now. I was hoping it was just the screen (which is all garbled), but Windows isn't seeing it when I plug it in. I have about 3 months worth of highlights since I last backed it up, that I really don't want to lose. All of my missing highlights are of sideloaded books that were not downloaded from Amazon, so they are not backed up to the Amazon account.

When I plug it into my laptop, it seems to be turning on and off (the screen gets bright, then darkens as if it is being turned on and off). But it never shows in Windows as a device. The Kindle screen is non-responsive, so I am unable to change any settings on the Kindle itself.

I have tried installing the Kindle app on Windows to update the drivers (I can't find any Kindle drivers anywhere other than sketchy third party sites), not that that is likely to fix this. I have tried plugging it into a different PC (not recognized there either). I have tried plugging my much, much older Kindle into this PC and it is recognized. So all signs point towards a hardware issue on this Kindle.

Any suggestions? This device is dead for all intents and purposes it seems, so I am fine with a destructive process, such as taking it apart if there's perhaps a chance of fixing a broken connection or something.