Quote:
Originally Posted by rehemiau
How to unbrick a 2GB Kobo Mini in Linux: (paola, you're interested in steps 2-4 but i wrote it also for others)
1. Download the image from fat265's webpage
2. If you use linux, I used Bless Hex Editor I found in the app center
If you use Windows you have to download a hex editor, like http://www.hhdsoftware.com/free-hex-editor which Jacques recommended over there
But anyway, I don't know how to perform the 5. step in Windows if you have a 2GB card
3. Open the file in the hex editor and find offset 200. If 'offset 200' doesn't say much: it's really the very beginning of the image, you will find it by scrolling the file a bit. It is a combination of 13 or so letters and numbers starting with N705 for a Mini.
4. Replace fat265's S/N with yours found in your own backup image. Your S/N is also written on the bottom of your Kobo Mini box (use just the same amount of letters/numbers, I didn't write /W there as I recall, I don't really remember). Save your file
5. I don't know how the hell did fat265 make a 4GB image out of a 2GB device (maybe his SD card has hidden 2GBs of space - it happens, sometimes it's just cheaper for the company to use a different card in a 2GB model).
To write the image from linux console i used dd:
if= is your .img path and of= is the device path, you can check it in gparted (mine was sdb because I used a usb adapter, mmcblk0 would be a default one for pc-built-in card reader, but better to check it anyway)
6. Wait a half an hour or so, there should be an error about the device being full if you use a 2GB card.
7. Then I noticed that recovery and system partitions are not being recognised in my file manager, so I opened gparted, right-clicked them and planned a check on them. Apply the changes and gparted should fix them.
8. Unmount the device (!) to make sure it can be safely plugged out
9. Put your card into your Kobo Mini and be happy 
All written from memory so I hope everything is correct so even a layman can do it |
rehemiau, thanks a million!
One thing which is not clear from your instructions is whether or not the destination card has to be formatted, or just overwritten with a new image - this won't be clear to a layperson
I do have a 4GB card in my mini, so it is possible that fat265 had the same. I've found the tools to read and write an image from Windows (plus I got a copy of Ubuntu and Fedora to see what is on the SD card, as windows does not recognise it and asks to format it - this was useful while I was trying to fix the card, but it did not work). I also have a sticker with the S/N inside the device, maybe others have that too.
Now I only have to be patient, as the fat265's image is still downloading (it has been doing so for the past three hours or so), and the download message says there are still 6 hours to go!