Calibre not seeing Kobo in Windows 10 Preview builds

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

For anyone who has formatted their Kobo with MiniTool Partition Wizard, is the partition still seen by a previous version of Windows 10?

Yes, they are for me. The MiniTool-ed devices are 'seen' OK by both my husband's PC (which updated to Win10AU today) and my PC which is still Win10 Home Build 10586.

All the fixing was done on the non-AU Windows 10.

[freekobo]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Yes, they are for me. The MiniTool-ed devices are 'seen' OK by both my husband's PC (which updated to Win10AU today) and my PC which is still Win10 Home Build 10586.

All the fixing was done on the non-AU Windows 10.

Same here, works on 10586 and 14393

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Yes, they are for me. The MiniTool-ed devices are 'seen' OK by both my husband's PC (which updated to Win10AU today) and my PC which is still Win10 Home Build 10586.

All the fixing was done on the non-AU Windows 10.

Originally Posted by freekobo

Same here, works on 10586 and 14393

Thanks for that. That's a big help.

[Joe Chip]

@frostschutz: Nice Job with the patch. Works fine on my Kobo H20, Win10Pro - after the Anniversary Update. Missing are only the Screensaver-Settings, but they still remain in my old settings, and i don't have to rename the Kobo eReader.conf. This will make it, until Kobo will start a new firmware. Thanks again!

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by Joe Chip

This will make it, until Kobo will start a new firmware.

Thanks for your feedback. Strange how it works for some and fails for some. With new devices around the corner, new firmware should not be that far away... hopefully it will bring a proper fix along.

[JSWolf]

I think the new firmware may be delayed because of Win 10AU. Kobo will have to change things so it works with Win 10AU.

[grahamch]

Originally Posted by frostschutz

I think I'll leave it at that - sorry I couldn't come up with a better method - looking forward to what Kobo's fix will look like.

I tried your fatpatch.exe but it couldn't find the Kobo filesystem. I then tried v4 but it does same as before, ramains on black clown and doesn't fix the problem.

I then went back through your posts, particularly post #107. I then mounted my N905B on Linux and ran fsck.fat. I found my version of fsck.fat is v3.0.27 while yours is 4.0, which probably explains why I had to do things slightly differnently. I found the dirty bit was set and I had to use fsck.fat -a (automatically repair the filesystem) to fix that, then I had to use fsck.fat -r (interactively repair the filesystem) to run it interactively before it would allow me to copy the backup boot sector to the original and perform the change. The result was:

mypc:/home/grahamc# fsck.fat -a /dev/sdc
fsck.fat 3.0.27 (2014-11-12)
0x41: Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt.
Automatically removing dirty bit.
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
This is mostly harmless. Differences: (offset: original/backup)
494:30/ff, 495:3d/00, 496:61/00, 497:8a/00, 498:f0/00, 499:b2/00, 500:6f/00
, 501:15/00, 502:5b/00, 503:35/00, 504:fd/00, 505:8c/00, 506:07/00
, 507:3d/00, 508:6e/00, 509:ea/00
Not automatically fixing this.
Performing changes.
/dev/sdc: 2623 files, 107816/348630 clusters
mypc:/home/grahamc# fsck.fat -r /dev/sdc
fsck.fat 3.0.27 (2014-11-12)
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
This is mostly harmless. Differences: (offset: original/backup)
494:30/ff, 495:3d/00, 496:61/00, 497:8a/00, 498:f0/00, 499:b2/00, 500:6f/00
, 501:15/00, 502:5b/00, 503:35/00, 504:fd/00, 505:8c/00, 506:07/00
, 507:3d/00, 508:6e/00, 509:ea/00
1) Copy original to backup
2) Copy backup to original
3) No action
? 2
Perform changes ? (y/n) y
/dev/sdc: 2623 files, 107816/348630 clusters
mypc:/home/grahamc#

I then unmounted and connected to Windows 10 AU (build 10393) and found, not surprisingly given your experience, that it works and I can now read the filesystem from Windows 10 AU. However what is surprising is that rebooting it did not disable it. This is possibly because since I upgraded the firmware to 3.19.5761 I can't power it off, I can only reboot it. Still, surprising, but there you go. I rebooted several times and I can still connect it to Windows 10 AU and see the files. Calibre also sees it fine.


Then I repeated the exercise with my wife's N905C and found that it also worked and I could read it on Windows 10 AU. However this one can be powered off and when I did so and restarted, it was as you found, the problem had returned.

I am quite happy with this though, because it is for me a simple and well-defined procedure for me to fix it via fsck.fat, and that's good enough for me, I am going to leave it like that. We rarely power our Kobos off and if the N905C is, it's easy to recover from. Down the track a bit I will check back in a while and see if Kobo come up with a fix for it, and see if I can work out a reliable fix, but I don't have the time right now. I could of course use the Minitool solution and reformat the drive and restore from backup, but I would really rather preserve my current files because I never know what the wretched DRM is going to do if I restore ePub files - I don't trust it not to decide I'm not allowed to read them any more.

This is considerable progress for me. I want to thank you, frostshutz, for your considerable efforts with this, it gave me quite a bit of information that was in the end enough to get me to a reliable working state.

[Witzendwizard]

Originally Posted by beachboybogart

I would simply like to know if anyone has had success doing this. I agree that if the device can be written to in Windows, it should work. Trying it out with the Kobo app or Calibre is one way to validate the full recovery of functionality. As of now, no one has stated whether everything works the way it used to.

As it appears that the problem lies with the Anniversary edition of Windows 10, I simply reverted to the previous Windows 10 build.

Action Center
All settings
Update and Security
Recovery
Go back to previous build.

Hope that helps!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Witzendwizard

As it appears that the problem lies with the Anniversary edition of Windows 10, I simply reverted to the previous Windows 10 build.

Action Center
All settings
Update and Security
Recovery
Go back to previous build.

Hope that helps!

But how long until Windows Update foists the AU version on you again?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But how long until Windows Update foists the AU version on you again?

Yes, reverting is a stopgap, but, it gives time for Kobo and/or MS to come up with a fix. And as you are the person who started a thread on how to prevent the updated, wasn't this what you were suggesting people do?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Yes, reverting is a stopgap, but, it gives time for Kobo and/or MS to come up with a fix. And as you are the person who started a thread on how to prevent the updated, wasn't this what you were suggesting people do?

I am suggesting turning off Windows updates so you don't get updated to the AU version. As I've not installed it, I don't know if it just downloads and starts installing or you have the ability to stop it from updating once it's downloaded.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I am suggesting turning off Windows updates so you don't get updated to the AU version. As I've not installed it, I don't know if it just downloads and starts installing or you have the ability to stop it from updating once it's downloaded.

Witzendwizard reverted to a savepoint. The update will have to be downloaded and installed again. So long as they now turn the updates off, this is a way to buy some time if they let it install before.

[lemerou]

Originally Posted by frostschutz

I've created a mod that performs the changes I described above on the Kobo. If successful it should make Kobo <-> Win10 compatible without formatting/losing any files.

Take it with a grain of salt since I've only tested with my H2O, and only with a Win10 virtual machine, not a real Win10 PC.

Just because it works for me doesn't mean it will work for you. Use at your own risk.

Backup your files first.

To install, copy KoboRoot-fatpatch.tgz » .kobo/KoboRoot.tgz

[yes you have to do that on a PC that still sees the KOBOeReader drive, or with a Linux LiveCD - someone else will have to find/write a Windows program that does this directly in Win10]

After installing the mod, the reader will reboot, display a fat clown, and reboot again. At that point the mod performed the changes and removed itself (you have to reinstall the mod to re-try), and things should just work.

If you use this, please report back whether it worked or not.

Edit v2: Updated to have a longer delay before the operation starts, maybe that works better for older/slower devices

Edit v3: There was a bug that affected devices with 2GB storage which has FAT32 backup sector in a different place. Unbelievable.

Bug Notice: This may cause power/screensaver settings to vanish after applying this mod. I'm not sure what's causing this yet. Workaround: rename the .kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf file to make Kobo return to default settings.

Edit v4: There was a syntax error that could cause the mod to get stuck and never reboot.

Experimental windows version here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...44#post3368644

Thank you for your patch (and all details, very interesting) !
Working fine on a Kobo Aura H2O with firmware 3.19.5613
I used a non updated Windows 10 to copy and rename the patch.
You should claim your reward to Kobo since an intern will probably use your work to fix their internal mess .

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by lemerou

You should claim your reward to Kobo since an intern will probably use your work to fix their internal mess .

Thanks for the compliment but - compared to my blind guesswork, they at least can look at their sourcecode so half of the story is known to them [other half is MS sourcecode, only they know why they reject FAT32 filesystems now].

Here's to hoping they will fix it properly, and soon I)

[beachboybogart]

Originally Posted by Witzendwizard

As it appears that the problem lies with the Anniversary edition of Windows 10, I simply reverted to the previous Windows 10 build...
...Hope that helps!

Unfortunately, one of the well-known grievances about W10 is that all updates are forced upon us, whether we like it or not (just for the great unwashed; corporate buyers can choose delayed plans). If you are on the Insider Hub, you probably don't even know for sure which update broke the Kobo link. The Insider build previous to the Anni Update is not the one that will fix it... it happened at least six or seven builds prior to that.

Regular users can postpone W10 updates only for a very short timeframe. And prior to the Anni Update on August 2, you could go back to the previous build for 30 days... now MS in their wisdom is only giving a 10-day grace period.

Another thing to remember: these "restore" points also effectively wipe out any other standard system restore points you might have.