Mini Help! Cannot Get Kobo Mini Started

[Bitter Almonds]

Hello,

I recently bought a Kobo Mini. I turned it on and tried to set-up the WiFi. It got stuck looking for the updates. I then tried to set it up by computer and it is stuck in a black screen that says: "Connected and charging" and states I should download the Kobo Desktop (which I did). It does nothing. I plug the USB in every port in my laptop and it doesn't show up, either, so it's not as if I can try to copy anything into it.

Am I stuck with a Kobo Brick?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Bitter Almonds

I recently bought a Kobo Mini. I turned it on and tried to set-up the WiFi. It got stuck looking for the updates. I then tried to set it up by computer and it is stuck in a black screen that says: "Connected and charging" and states I should download the Kobo Desktop (which I did). It does nothing. I plug the USB in every port in my laptop and it doesn't show up, either, so it's not as if I can try to copy anything into it.

Am I stuck with a Kobo Brick?

The same thing happened to me recently. I bought a Kobo Mini (mostly because it had an OEM sleep cover and it was cheap on Shop Goodwill). Both the cover and the Kobo were basically new. Unfortunately the battery (which probably hadn't been charged in 8 years) was kaput. When I opened it, it was swelled up, though I could turn the Mini on if I plugged it to power. But, like you, it was stuck in setup. And, something like you, I got out the old laptop that still has a Vista partition and installed the Kobo Desktop. It kept saying it was going to update the Mini, but kept failing.

So I downloaded firmware 4.19.14123 (the version for the Glo) and hooked up the Kobo Mini to my Linux desktop. I was able to move the update over to the Mini and unzip it, when I turned it off and back on, it came up and installed the update. Than I was able to connect via WiFi and register it. I've got a new battery on order from China, which left Whittier, California a few days ago and should be here by Tuesday (they say). It's one of those DHL/Post Office collaborations that always seem to take forever.

At any rate, I think you're fine. Just get the firmware, unzip it in its own directory (you might have unzip a zip file within the zip file I can't remember), hook up the Kobo and move the contents to ... whichever directory the Kobo needs for the update (I had to put into directories because I had forgotten which one was the right one.) When the battery arrives and if everything goes well, I'll report on where I got it and the process involved in replacing it.

Good luck. The Minis are nice little readers.

[Bitter Almonds]

But I only have the one laptop running Windows 10. The Kobo Mini is stuck in that black screen to download Kobo Desktop or stuck looking for updates in the WiFi. I can't get out of the initial set-up. I'd even be fine if I could just access the internal storage to transfer e-books and e-manga, but it doesn't register in the laptop from any of its USB ports (it only charges).

[geek1011]

Try using a USB hub; my Kobo doesn't detect my desktop's USB ports either.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Bitter Almonds

But I only have the one laptop running Windows 10. The Kobo Mini is stuck in that black screen to download Kobo Desktop or stuck looking for updates in the WiFi. I can't get out of the initial set-up. I'd even be fine if I could just access the internal storage to transfer e-books and e-manga, but it doesn't register in the laptop from any of its USB ports (it only charges).

"Set up on WiFi" or "use Kobo Desktop" were my two choices as well. I found that, when I chose the Desktop option I could see the Kobo in my file manager when I enabled show hidden files. You would have to tell Windows to show hidden files. If the Mini says "Connected" you should be good — this is exactly what mine showed in Linux (unfortunately I don't know enough about Windows to help a lot with it, but I think there is an option to show hidden files).

Does the Kobo Desktop see the Kobo Mini? Mine did — it just never would complete the update. That's why I went with the manual update route.

Hopefully someone has done what I did but used Windows instead. Hopefully they can be of more help with the Windows specifics. The fact that the Kobo Mini says "connected" is a good sign. Somehow you should be able to see it in Windows' File Manager (or whatever it's called now).