Is there any way to recover deleted files?

[tinycrabman6]

Hi everyone,

So, recently I had the unfortunate pleasure of having Amazon remotely delete all my sideloaded books on my Scribe (as described in this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=340936).

I have been trying to figure out if there is a viable method of recovering my books and notes — standard PC recovery software won’t work since the Scribe was updated to MTP. I have been exploring the possibility to disable MTP, and mount it under Linux as a USB Mass Storage device as was the case before I updated to firmware 5.16.3.

Has anyone had success reverting MTP on the Scribe? I looked online and haven’t seen anyone do this yet. My only lead I noticed so far is that is that there is a Boolean toggle “MTP_available” in the /etc/sysconfig/board_variables file.

I am also jailbroken so I am open to installing any command line software that can run on-device (though I am wary of potentially overwriting the deleted data on the device).

P.S
Does anybody know if there is a way to prevent Amazon from remotely deleting files when I connect to the wifi in the future? I hope to disable the binary/script responsible for it (if possible).

I’d love if someone more experienced could chime in. And thanks for any help or suggestions!

[Lord.Sucuk]

You could try debugfs to restore deleted files directly on your Kindle with KOReader's built-in terminal.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tinycrabman6

Hi everyone,

So, recently I had the unfortunate pleasure of having Amazon remotely delete all my sideloaded books on my Scribe (as described in this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=340936).

I have been trying to figure out if there is a viable method of recovering my books and notes — standard PC recovery software won’t work since the Scribe was updated to MTP. I have been exploring the possibility to disable MTP, and mount it under Linux as a USB Mass Storage device as was the case before I updated to firmware 5.16.3.

Has anyone had success reverting MTP on the Scribe? I looked online and haven’t seen anyone do this yet. My only lead I noticed so far is that is that there is a Boolean toggle “MTP_available” in the /etc/sysconfig/board_variables file.

I am also jailbroken so I am open to installing any command line software that can run on-device (though I am wary of potentially overwriting the deleted data on the device).

P.S
Does anybody know if there is a way to prevent Amazon from remotely deleting files when I connect to the wifi in the future? I hope to disable the binary/script responsible for it (if possible).

I’d love if someone more experienced could chime in. And thanks for any help or suggestions!

The solution to prevent this in the future is to keep WiFi off.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by tinycrabman6

I am also jailbroken so I am open to installing any command line software that can run on-device (though I am wary of potentially overwriting the deleted data on the device).

It is possible to downgrade the firmware of a jailbroken kindle. For background see the thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=346784
and for a KUAL extension to do so see:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=347165

It is probably best to read the entire threads.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Lord.Sucuk

You could try debugfs to restore deleted files directly on your Kindle with KOReader's built-in terminal.

And that is going to work over MTP how?

[slm]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The solution to prevent this in the future is to keep WiFi off.

If I've understood the deletion-of-sideloaded-books issue, the real solution is to keep your wi-fi on all the time.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by slm

If I've understood the deletion-of-sideloaded-books issue, the real solution is to keep your wi-fi on all the time.

And then you get battery drain. No thanks. Keeping the WiFi off is the best solution.

[Quoth]

This is why some people remove DRM and make backups.

[tinycrabman6]

Originally Posted by Lord.Sucuk

You could try debugfs to restore deleted files directly on your Kindle with KOReader's built-in terminal.

Thank you for bringing that tool to my attention, could you verify what filesystem would I mount with this in KOreader?

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The solution to prevent this in the future is to keep WiFi off.

I'd definitely be open to this if I could still keep LAN connections to manage my files over a network connection with USBnet.

Originally Posted by j.p.s

It is possible to downgrade the firmware of a jailbroken kindle. For background see the thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=346784
and for a KUAL extension to do so see:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=347165

It is probably best to read the entire threads.

Older firmware versions of the Scribe firmware had a bug which deleted notebooks, so I am leery of downgrading. (Unless you know of a guaranteed goldilocks firmware where neither book nor notebook deletion bugs occur).

Originally Posted by Quoth

This is why some people remove DRM and make backups.

I am actually one of those [paranoid] people, lol. I personally have been making bi-monthly backups to my PC since I got my Scribe due to the aforementioned notebook deletion bug.

The main reason I wanted to recover these files are for the notes I have created. I have been using my Scribe to markup my various academic files and losing a nearly 2-month chunk of all my notes right before final exam season is a real bummer to say the least. Guess I should have been making weekly backups instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Quoth]

Daily backups if you using it more than a few hours.

[Lord.Sucuk]

Originally Posted by tinycrabman6

Thank you for bringing that tool to my attention, could you verify what filesystem would I mount with this in KOreader?

I would be cautious when using debugfs and would first familiarize myself with it on another Linux system. It requires access to the underlying block device where the Kindle's file system resides and it may be necessary to remount the filesystem as read-only. That could become problematic, as you need to run debugfs from the Kindle itself (data overwriting/corruption possible)

Use lsblk -f to identify your block device (in my case on a PW3 it's mmcblk0p1, ext3 - debugfs won't work with fat32)