Small debricking guide for “noobs”

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by abderrahman

I did... but the update keeps U600'ing on me!

I removed my custom folder, and restored the original as it is

Then some other modified file or folder must also be restored to the original version. It might be easier to "debrick" it back to a "factory fresh" image (even an older version), then apply updates.

[abderrahman]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Then some other modified file or folder must also be restored to the original version. It might be easier to "debrick" it back to a "factory fresh" image (even an older version), then apply updates.

I did debrick it, I flashed the older kernel (because 4.0.1 was faulty) for both diags & main (of course along with mmcblk0)

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by abderrahman

I did debrick it, I flashed the older kernel (because 4.0.1 was faulty) for both diags & main (of course along with mmcblk0)

It makes no sense to flash both kernels. Diags has nothing to do with main. You did not say that you flashed matching partitions.

And why did you think (in a previous post) that flashing an older kernel would fix your "won't update" problem?

Just flash 4.0.0 main and 4.0.0 kernel. Then do updates.

[abderrahman]

maybe I wasn't clear...

My Kindle was perfectly functional, I just wanted to update. It was 4.0.1
But the 4.0.1 in the links was corrupt, so I flashed 4.0

I used matching partitions (my diags is 4.0.1, main is 4.0)
Now my Kindle is working & functional... it's just the matter of update. So all I did was for nothing (removing screensavers, debricking)

I should say that debricking didn't remove the screensaver hack... so maybe there is something wrong that I did?

I tried dd in fastboot, I tried SSH... nothing is working!

[abderrahman]

I've just reflashed the main kernel (fastboot) and main partition (SSH) for good measure

[fastboot flash kernel kernel.img
dd if=/mnt/us/mmcblk0p1.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 bs=4K]

still U006

[NiLuJe]

@abderrahman: AFAIR, one of the 4.0 image available still has a crappy screensavers hack installed.

Either revert it manually, or use this.

[abderrahman]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@abderrahman: AFAIR, one of the 4.0 image available still has a crappy screensavers hack installed.

Either revert it manually, or use this.

Thank you

a quick "ls /mnt/us/opt/amazon" reveals that indeed the image there is SS hacked

And now the system is un-hacked... but still refuses to update

Why?!

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@abderrahman: AFAIR, one of the 4.0 image available still has a crappy screensavers hack installed.

Either revert it manually, or use this.

I forgot about that. Somebody should post a version with that "crappy screensavers hack" removed, then send me the URL so I can put it into the pastebin...

@abderrahman: I only suggested that you "debrick" it to revert the firmware version, not because it may have been bricked... I see now that 4.0.0 needs the 800x800 folder removed, and 800x600_ renamed to 800x600 before updating to newer firmware...

[abderrahman]

Ya, I know man

could someone dump the 4.1 (hacked or not)... OR 4.0.x vanilla untouched so I could just flash it?

4.1 does the trick (already updated), vanilla 4.0.x allows me to update

[Mike76]

Are there any risk of sharing Kindle images? I've dumped 4.1.0 images from my old 2011 Kindle. I'm going to sell this reader but I don't want to cause any problem (blacklisted Kindle, etc.) to the new owner.

[abderrahman]

Originally Posted by Mike76

Are there any risk of sharing Kindle images? I've dumped 4.1.0 images from my old 2011 Kindle. I'm going to sell this reader but I don't want to cause any problem (blacklisted Kindle, etc.) to the new owner.

No, I don't think so
Because all devices share mmcblk0p0/1/2, but your data is stored on p3
So there's noway Amazon would know which device gave that dump

However, I will wait for someone who's a Kindle dev to answer that question with a definite answer
But in Android or Linux it works that way

How did you dump them? dd thru ssh?

[knc1]

There is no partition 0 (mmcblk0p0) .
There is data stored outside of the partition table, in the frontmost part of mmcblk0.
That part of the storage contains, among other things, the machine specific data.
Share that between two (or more) Kindles will get them both (all) blacklisted.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by knc1

There is no partition 0 (mmcblk0p0) .
There is data stored outside of the partition table, in the frontmost part of mmcblk0.
That part of the storage contains, among other things, the machine specific data.
Share that between two (or more) Kindles will get them both (all) blacklisted.

But on a K4 or newer model, any dump made with "dd" will show zeroes on the idme vars (serial number and such), so even that should be safe. You can only read those vars via kernel /proc files, which is what "idme" uses for reading. Interestingly, you can WRITE to that storage location yourself, so it is easy enough to write the values that you cannot read.

It is the K3 and earlier that expose the idme vars for reading by use apps.

It would be good to replace the root password hash in /etc/shadow with the known mario DES hash (copied from a known mario shadow file). Otherwise the root password will not be computable for any serial number but yours...

[abderrahman]

so if Mike posts his images here, do I need to make changes (or him to remove things)?

or can he just upload them and I'd flash them directly?

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by abderrahman

so if Mike posts his images here, do I need to make changes (or him to remove things)?

or can he just upload them and I'd flash them directly?

For a K4, his images will be safe, but unless he changes his root password to mario, you will need to know his root password. You can only compute it from HIS serial number, not yours -- which is why we replace it with the mario DES hash before uploading. Also, it may be a good idea to delete /etc/guid from the image...