PRS-300 10 times reset and ebook applications alt f/w

[slippy]

Hi All,

I just thought I'd let you know of a pitfall I encountered with my 300 recently.

I am running Boroda's f/w V1.05a, and recently have been trying out the http://ebookapplications.com/ overlay, V1.6.

Last week whilst on holiday, a combination of Sun, Sand, and San Miguel caused me to have a brain fart.

My battery was showing 2 bars remaining, when the screen froze. Now my 300 is quite reliable regarding the battery meter (its about 10 months old and has been discharged fully several times), so I was surprised to see the screen freeze. My beer enhanced brain decided that a restart was needed rather than a recharge, so I tried to turn the machine off and on, which failed. Brain then decided that a reset was needed, which failed. Another pint of S.M. later, and Brain decides that a recharge, followed by the "10 times reset" is required, as the firmware was obviously corrupt .

Have I mentioned that I was using a USB wall charger (500mA with a PSP USB lead), and my recharge lasted the length of time to walk to the fridge, pour another SM, and walk back to the 300?

I started pressing the reset button/power switch cycle, and could only watch in horror as a minute or so later the screen froze with "updating firmware now" with a flashing amber LED. I could not reinstate the 300 back to a working conditon, and being without a PC there was nothing I could do. Fully discharging/ recharging/ resetting the machine failed. I spent the last week of the holiday borrowing tatty old paperbacks from the reception, and drowning my sorrows in more San Miguel. And Sangria.

Arriving home last night, I plugged the 300 into my PC, and fired them both up. Still nothing. All I could get was one external drive showing up in "My Computer", with a 44Kb file called "Protected!!". After several hours of attempts (although sober, I was now tired after travelling home), I eventually remembered that Kartu had helped me out previously with a firmware issue. Running the 300 updater from Kartu's link, I succesfully reflashed my reader with 505 firmware, and then Boroda's 1.05a. This was my last attempt at a fix, I was seriously starting to wonder if I had bricked the reader.

I believe that the issue I had was likely caused by the reader attempting to run the ebook application firmware mask as an update rather than a 'proper' firmware.

Regardless, I have now restored my reader back to a fully working condition. I post this tale in the hope that it may help others avoid my mistake.

[jackskellington]

Hi slippy. I'm having the exact same issue and I can't seem to figure out how to use the 505 firmware flasher to get my PRS-300 to be writeable again (in order to copy the new firmware to internal memory). Could you please tell me what you did to get your unit working again? JS

[kartu]

Jack, could you provide more details please:

1) what caused your reader to brick?
2) do you see "loading" screen etc?

If you've used ebook apps software, then connecting reader to the PC (while it boots), then formatting the internal memory should fix it.

[jackskellington]

Hi Kartu, thanks for your help!
1) I was trying to load a large pdf and the battery drained before it ever opened. It never went beyond the 'loading book' screen, but I could still see the drives in Windows at that point.
2) After recharging with the wall charger overnight, I tried to hard boot (arrow down, zero key) to bring things back to baseline. Now it just hangs on the loading screen.
3) If I do the 10 reboot sequence, I can force the update screen, but it shows revision 0.0.0.0 and I only see a drive with 44K and a protected file. I ran the 505/300 updater on it, and although it never gets beyond the loading screen I can see two drives (empty, but inaccessible) in Windows. I cannot format or run checkdisk on these drives.

Calibre no longer see the device.

How do I re-apply the original 300 firmware (or any 300 firmware) to my 300 if I cannot copy files to one of the drives?

[kartu]

First, don't worry, you'll unbrick it.

If it is in an "updating firmware state" then you shouldn't bother checking what's on the drive.

Revision 0.0.0.0 means that you've successfully put it into recovery mode.

Now what's the problem with the updater? Did you use the one linked in the first post? (there is a special "300" one) Did you try to copy the updater to the reader? Well, if yes, that's wrong. You are supposed to run it on your PC, while your reader is connected to it?

[jackskellington]

I hope so! Pretty frustrated with the thing at this point...

I've been able to run the 300 updater (from my PC, with reader connected) from the first post - but after I run it, my 300 reboots and still gets stuck in the 'opening book' state and the drives are not readable in Windows.

How do I apply/copy the proper firmware to the 300 if I can't get to the drive itself after rebooting?

[kartu]

jack,

if reader goes into "opening reader" state, it means you didn't really do "10 resets".
The 300/505's have the following feature: if reader dosn't reach some "safe" stage for more than 10 times, flash memory is wiped and reader switches into firmware recovery mode.

In this case on the reader you see a message that tells you that firmware update has failed and askes to install it again.

Now, when reseting the reader, do it right after it flashes the screen and starts booting, before it reaches "safe" state. (you can't really tell when he does o rnot, but reseting right after screen refresh after reboot works)