Noob's guide to debricking through ATK :D

[babywin]

Thanks guys! I've unbricked my K3 following the wiki in spanish language https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/K3noobdebrickatk/es
Love!

[qlob]

Originally Posted by babywin

Thanks guys! I've unbricked my K3 following the wiki in spanish language https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/K3noobdebrickatk/es
Love!

That's good to hear!

@GM: We may need a "Successful Debrick" wiki page.

[thomass]

Originally Posted by qlob

@GM: We may need a "Successful Debrick" wiki page.

You can create it yourself ( just like this one ). But more importing thing is keeping it updated. Therefore maybe you're right on requesting this from GM.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by thomass

You can create it yourself ( just like this one ). But more importing thing is keeping it updated. Therefore maybe you're right on requesting this from GM.

Others can add success reports to a wiki (which is good), but I also think that long list in the simple debricking first post adds "credibility" (or incredibility) to it. And I like the notoriety from that list. I grin every time I see it.

Although non-members can edit the wiki, many will not know it exists (unless I link it in my first post). Keeping two lists will be more maintenance, while trying to keep them in sync.

Life is full of tradeoffs, and this is no exception.

I think I will keep my list (for now).

However, if you find anything I missed, go ahead and add it to the wiki, and I will use that information to update my list.

[thomass]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

I think I will keep my list (for now).

It is OK.
Also sorry for posting the suggestion twice.

[olag]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum but in doing the noob k3 wiki i'm not even getting past step 4. When i run the ATK I change all of the settings and when i go to press the "Next" button I get a popup box which states,

No USB detected!
Please check your USB connection and Try again

Only button here is an OK button.
So I hit the OK button and then check the "bypass the settings box" and hit the next and it does bring me to a screen with two buttons but the "Flash Tool" button is greyed out and un-clickable. I have no idea what i'm doing wrong.
Any help to give me a clue would be greatly appreciated.

[notimp]

You are doing nothing wrong. Its just an extreme oversight on part of the people who have written the tutorials for debricking. Tutorials in which they forgot to mention where exactly you should unzip files, in which broken downloads are still linked and people encouraged to flash files with checksum errors, tutorials where it is not mentioned that you should leave out 0x when entering certain hex numbers in adress fields...

One of those "oversights" on part of the tutorial people was to mention, that ATK only comes with 32bit drivers. When you install it on a 64bit Windows system, the driver installation routine is simply skipped. If you try to install the drivers manually (by executing the bat files coming with ATK you will see that the program used to register the drivers simply refuses to work on 64bit systems, the same goes for the uninstallation of ATK, where actually for the first time ever ATK decides to push error messages to the non command line user).

People in this forum adviced on booting into Windows with "allow unsigned drivers" enabled (its a preboot F8 option), because someone using some other driver, flashing through some other program once had success doing that. You can scrap this as well, it doesn't work, since at no time ATK gets its drivers installed properly. Therefore at no time Windows does actually know that such drivers are on the system. Also pointing the drivers update to the drivers folder within the ATK installation on 64bit systems, even with "allow unsigned drivers" enabled - doesn't work.

The solution is as ludicrous as it is simple. You have to use a 32bit installation of Windows. Then ATK upon installation will pop up a command line Window and for the first time install the required drivers. Its as simple as that.

Just everyone fails to mention it. So yes for the Kindle 3/Keyboard - currently use the 3.0.2 kernel and mmcblk0p1 file (attention it comes in a split archive with two parts) (not the 3.3 files (dropbox upload is corrupt)), unzip them until you have the .img files of both. Rename them like stated in the tutorial (to .bin files), then use a 32bit Windows installation to install ATK on. And for the flashing process itself, use the same adress spaces (0x......) that are mentioned for 3.3 in the tutorial, just leave out the first two digits (0x) in the beginning, as they are already presumed by ATK. The last step may be optional, but I had a successful K3 Keyboard debrick by not entering 0x as the first two digits in the adress fields.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by notimp

You are doing nothing wrong. Its just an extreme oversight on part of the people who have written the tutorials for debricking. . . . .

**YOU** are one of "the people" at this site.

**YOU** can type a tutorial on the Wiki page without the "extreme oversights" just as easy (well, easier) than the posts that you are making in the forum.

Please do not forget to add the link to your improved tutorial to the appropriate page(s) of the index system when it is done.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by notimp

You are doing nothing wrong. Its just an extreme oversight on part of the people who have written the tutorials for debricking. ...The solution is as ludicrous as it is simple. You have to use a 32bit installation of Windows. ... Just everyone fails to mention it. ...

Your post is inappropriately arrogant, rude, and hostile towards the developers (who provide all this hard work for FREE, out of their own good will). Your comments detract greatly from any feelings of good will that we may get from this forum.

Also, there are success reports from people who HAVE used 64-bit windows for debricking, so your post contains factual misinformation as well.

Your post does contain some useful information, but most of that has been discussed elsewhere. The "small debricking guides" are shortened versions of information from their respective threads, and leave many details out INTENTIONALLY, so that they CAN be "small". If in doubt, it is recommended to read the threads.

The guides are useful in many cases, but certainly not complete. Remember that they are written by hobbiests, not professionals, and they are certainly worth a lot more than you paid for them (i.e. nothing).

If there are errors or omissions in the guides, please fix them instead of harshly criticizing their authors. They are just summaries of information and methods created by others anyway, enhanced with feedback from other members. If you can do a better job of summarizing, then please do so. And if you can add new and valuable information, that is even better.

Please edit your post (again) to be less rude and condescending. Thanks.

[knc1]

Durn, where did I put my copy of gimp?

We need a new "critic without contribution" , CwC smiley for our collection.
Or maybe it is just a normal Monday morning thing intended to insult every contributor here.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by knc1

Durn, where did I put my copy of gimp?

We need a new "critic without contribution" , CwC smiley for our collection.
Or maybe it is just a normal Monday morning thing intended to insult every contributor here.

Perhaps he was just grumpy when he posted. We all have our "ups and downs", partly because some of the most prolific creators and contributors (including both of us) have more than our fair share of OCD.

I am looking forward to his contributions when he is in a good mood.

[notimp]

CwC - I like it, made me smile..

And for the record, i did contribute in providing the information that was requested (and than some more (simple ones) to prevent people ending up reflashing for four hours and still having a brick at hands).

Im basically saying, that description also is important. And if you use a lets say titilating term such as noob in the title, to be sure you deliver. You may have at one point, but with having one of the major resources of the linked to images going offline - there might have been more work needed than just upload 3.0.2 images and let people figure out themselves what to do with them.

Im grateful that the method exists, and that someone documented it sufficiently enough, that I was able to use it, after some digging around in some forum threads and doing some basic problem solving - but for that I had to know that, you probably wouldnt like to rename gz files to bin, when doing the same with img files made much more sense, work out that both the dropbox source for the 3.3 file and the hints on how to make ATK work on x64 (run the bat file, restart with "use unsigned drivers" enabled) were dead ends, and assume, that there might have been a reason for the ATK devs to put a static 0x right before input boxes in their interface.

Furthermore, the probable fact, that the ATK method can't be used on a x32 Windows seemed to be new to this forum also - and was the initial cause for me deciding to post in this manner.

Either you don't care for updating a tutorial and assume that you left enough pointers for people to figure out whole section changes for themselves (which I must admit you did), OR you tout people with a simple n00b friendly tutorial which everyone can follow. Which I have to say was not the case here, and might not have been the case for quite some time actually.

But never the less, thank you for providing the method. Thank you indeed.

[knc1]

YOU have the same Wiki edit privileges as anyone else.

As Pogo would say:
You have met the member who did not improve the article posted, and it is yourself.

Edit the article, not your opinion of it here.

[geekmaster]

We all agree that improvements are needed. Things are already much easier than when they began, as you can see by following the threads in which these ideas and methods evolved over time.

Unfortunatley, new firmware updates complicate all this stuff greatly. And we only have our SPARE time to devote to this forum.

Assistance in making this stuff better, by yourself and others, is greatly appreciated. Because you pointed out various things that SHOULD be fixed in the documentation, I strongly suggest that it is you who SHOULD fix those errors and omissions.

One example is the pastebin. It contains links provided by members. If you have a better debricking repair firmware image link to contribute to repace a defective one, we would be more than happy to add it to the pastebin. But by all means, make your suggested corrections to the noobs guides.

And be polite. Please.

[knc1]

@GM: Thanks for the translation.

@notimp: You want the registration passcode for mmg?
Then you could diss the entire site that I run.