Original "Simple" debricking methods for K5-Touch, K4-Mini, & K3-Keyboard

[twobob]

Originally Posted by ixtab

@gm:

A tiny question: I know that eureka had posted a standalone u-boot fastboot binary (the one not requiring u-boot bist), but I can't find it anymore

Would somebody who knows where it can be found please post a pointer?

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=728

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by twobob

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=728

Dankeschön!

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by ixtab

@gm:

A tiny question: I know that eureka had posted a standalone u-boot fastboot binary (the one not requiring u-boot bist), but I can't find it anymore

Would somebody who knows where it can be found please post a pointer?

I see you found it, thanks to twobob. That link is also in the first post of the simple debricking sticky thread (third "UPDATE" paragraph), and in the index wikis. I was thinking of reposting the MfgTool custom profiles to use eureka's "fastboot inside" u-boot in place of the existing fastboot image.

We must be patient with noobs even with our extensive published resources in plain sight, when even the best of us fail to find stuff that is "hiding in plain sight" at times.

Searching the sheer quantity of useful information published here is a chore even WITH the indexes and thread prefixes and sticky threads, but BEFORE we had them it was even more difficult to find things. If anybody has suggestions for better ways to help find things here, please speak up!

[ixtab]

Hmmm... I just noticed something odd with the standalone version:

booting to fastboot, then:
fastboot setvar bootmode diags
fastboot reboot

does not work with the standalone one. The device stays in a "non-working" fastboot mode. With the "original" fastboot.bin, everything works as expected.

This is reproducible.

Any thoughts? (My guess is that the standalone version can't set the bootmode anymore, or can't properly reboot, maybe because the relevant parts have been "patched out" to save space).

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by ixtab

Hmmm... I just noticed something odd with the standalone version:

booting to fastboot, then:
fastboot setvar bootmode diags
fastboot reboot

does not work with the standalone one. The device stays in a "non-working" fastboot mode. With the "original" fastboot.bin, everything works as expected.

This is reproducible.

Any thoughts? (My guess is that the standalone version can't set the bootmode anymore, or can't properly reboot, maybe because the relevant parts have been "patched out" to save space).

That is good to know. At least the "fastboot inside" version can be used to flash a full uboot bist image to the mmc, so that you can then boot to the full fastboot mode.

The main reason for the existence of this standalone uboot with integrated fastboot is for users who have an erased or corrupted uboot bist in their mmc, so even a stripped down version with no bootmode support still has its place in our collection of debricking tools.

Thanks for finding this before I replaced the one in the MfgTool profiles. Now I will add it as a fourth profile instead...

[ivakuska]

Originally Posted by ixtab

Hmmm... I just noticed something odd with the standalone version:

booting to fastboot, then:
fastboot setvar bootmode diags
fastboot reboot

does not work with the standalone one. The device stays in a "non-working" fastboot mode. With the "original" fastboot.bin, everything works as expected.

This is reproducible.

Any thoughts? (My guess is that the standalone version can't set the bootmode anymore, or can't properly reboot, maybe because the relevant parts have been "patched out" to save space).

When I follow that speps , I open the CMD, and after i wrote :
fastboot setvar bootmode diags
was published : waitning for device and ai waiteddd.... so much and I disconeted the device.. I should update the kindle unknown driver with this posted?

Thx

[eureka]

Originally Posted by ixtab

Hmmm... I just noticed something odd with the standalone version:

booting to fastboot, then:
fastboot setvar bootmode diags
fastboot reboot

does not work with the standalone one. The device stays in a "non-working" fastboot mode. With the "original" fastboot.bin, everything works as expected.

This is reproducible.

Any thoughts? (My guess is that the standalone version can't set the bootmode anymore, or can't properly reboot, maybe because the relevant parts have been "patched out" to save space).

I confirm overall behavior. setvar bootmode diags works flawlessly. reboot doesn't reboot device, just "reset" it somehow, certainly disrupting fastboot mode. I don't know why and not sure I'll investigate it further.

Hold power button for reboot after setvar. Or don't set bootmode at all and use diags.bin U-Boot image for booting diags.

[varnie]

I'd like to say a huge thanks to ixtab! With the instructions he provided I downgraded my KT to the previous firmware version and updated back smoothly.
(Don't ask why I needed to do that. Short answer is - I wanted to understand all the things to do that to clean up my device from all the mess (unneeded hacks/changes).
And..the last but not least: it's all about an experience you get learning the new stuff! ^_^

[jcyb9]

Hi everybody,

I have a KT which bricked after rechargin from depleted battery.

Synptoms are the TREE screen (withouth progress bar) and after a minute followed by blank/black flashing screen to the TREE screen and so on.

I can switch between fastboot/diags modes using MfgTool, but fastboot flashing or even erasing has no effect. In fact (by switching to diags mode and activating USB Mass Storage Device) even an erased user partition shows the old data. Even FORMATTING and FILLING USB MSD has no effect, the old data is somehow recovered after rebooting the KT!!!

Not mentioning SSH, which returns 'connection refused' (after 30s) even after flashing mmcblk0p2_ssh.img!!!

Also, activating the MOVINAND test in DIAGS mode returns FAIL (but maybe it fails even in non-bricked kindles).

Any help greately appreciated, thank you

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by jcyb9

Hi everybody,

I have a KT which bricked after rechargin from depleted battery.

Synptoms are the TREE screen (withouth progress bar) and after a minute followed by blank/black flashing screen to the TREE screen and so on.

I can switch between fastboot/diags modes using MfgTool, but fastboot flashing or even erasing has no effect. In fact (by switching to diags mode and activating USB Mass Storage Device) even an erased user partition shows the old data. Even FORMATTING and FILLING USB MSD has no effect, the old data is somehow recovered after rebooting the KT!!!

Not mentioning SSH, which returns 'connection refused' (after 30s) even after flashing mmcblk0p2_ssh.img!!!

Also, activating the MOVINAND test in DIAGS mode returns FAIL (but maybe it fails even in non-bricked kindles).

Any help greately appreciated, thank you

You said that "fastboot ERASING" does not work? How do you know that? Why did you do that?

If you erase the user partition, rebooting REPOPULATES it with default files. Did you expect it to stay empty after reformatting?

[jcyb9]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

You said that "fastboot ERASING" does not work? How do you know that? Why did you do that?

I did because I read many posts about debricking yesterday, and found out that sometimes doing a

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0p3

helped to debrick. I did it also because I was frustrated in not having any SSH after "fastboot flash diags mmcblk0p2_ssh.img", so I tried a "fastboot erase diags" before it.

I know about fastboot being something made for android ported to KT, so not everything may work or report an OK while not working (e.g.: flashing a large 128MB main .img).

If you erase the user partition, rebooting REPOPULATES it with default files. Did you expect it to stay empty after reformatting?

No, in fact I expected the defaults while I found my books, jbpatcher, a CBR reading app, screensaver, gui launcher, etc.

I also did a

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/cygdrive/f/randfile

before disconnecting the KT.

Yes I know it sounds very strange, unfortunately these are the symptoms.

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by jcyb9

I did because I read many posts about debricking yesterday, and found out that sometimes doing a

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0p3

helped to debrick. I did it also because I was frustrated in not having any SSH after "fastboot flash diags mmcblk0p2_ssh.img", so I tried a "fastboot erase diags" before it.

I know about fastboot being something made for android ported to KT, so not everything may work or report an OK while not working (e.g.: flashing a large 128MB main .img).



No, in fact I expected the defaults while I found my books, jbpatcher, a CBR reading app, screensaver, gui launcher, etc.

I also did a

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/cygdrive/f/randfile

before disconnecting the KT.

Yes I know it sounds very strange, unfortunately these are the symptoms.

You are confusing /dev/mmcblk0p3 and /dev/mmcblk0p4.
More info: Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Partitions.

[jcyb9]

Originally Posted by ixtab

You are confusing /dev/mmcblk0p3 and /dev/mmcblk0p4.
More info: Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Partitions.

Well, I'm trying to erase/zero both, withouth success.

Also the 'bootmode' variable is unchaged, but I succeed to get diags via MfgTool:

C:\fastboot>fastboot setvar bootmode diags
setting 'bootmode' to 'diags'...
bootmode diags:
finished. total time: 0.000s

C:\fastboot>fastboot getvar bootmode
bootmode: main
finished. total time: -0.000s

[jcyb9]

I think i found someone with my same probleme here at "Kindle Touch: Bricked and readonly filesystem". Unfortunately no solution...

[jcyb9]

I'm getting crazy: tried the "mount nfs" method like described in this thread, also tried the "D) Disable diagnostics" way used by Duokan: no way...

I should find a way to unprotect the internal moviNand flash somehow (since I think it's something more deep than just a read-only filesystem mount).