My original Kobo is a zombie

[Vivian]

A few years ago, I put a book on my Kobo that it couldn't seem to handle, and it never recovered. For a long time, it was frozen. I couldn't do a thing with it. I called customer support, and they got me to try some things that didn't work before pronouncing it dead.

Yesterday I took it out of the drawer where I'd entombed it, and plugged it in. It came to life... well, sort of. I can turn it on, and see the books on it. I just can't read any of them. When I click on a book, I get the "Loading" progress bar, and it just sits there until it times out.

The artificial rubber on the blue button and back has deteriorated and is now all gross and squishy.

I am anticipating hearing a chorus of, "Throw it out!!!" But hey, it starts up now. And it has sentimental value. It was my first ereader ever. I even bought a leather case for it, which doesn't fit the other types of Kobo. Maybe not even other types of ereader.

Isn't there something I can do with it? How about some kind of Kobo hack? Can I upcycle it into anything? Any suggestions welcome.

[salamanderjuice]

Have you tried a factory reset?

[Vivian]

You'd think I would have thought of that, huh?

It worked. Thanks salamanderjuice.

The covering on the buttons was such a mess, I had to take it off. Now I have to press the exposed buttons on the circuit board. But it works. I'm amazed.

Funny thing: when the Kobo first came out, it came with a hundred books. Those are gone now. It said I had no books when I started it up. I had to plug it in and sync it.

[RowdyRuff]

Originally Posted by Vivian

You'd think I would have thought of that, huh?

It worked. Thanks salamanderjuice.

The covering on the buttons was such a mess, I had to take it off. Now I have to press the exposed buttons on the circuit board. But it works. I'm amazed.

Funny thing: when the Kobo first came out, it came with a hundred books. Those are gone now. It said I had no books when I started it up. I had to plug it in and sync it.

Am sure a broken one will pop-up on a well known auction site 'for parts', so that you can restore its' dignity. Are the free books availabble to download from your Kobo account, maybe...?

[compurandom]

I seem to recall the kobo free books are mostly a good selection of classics from gutenberg anyway. So even if you cant find them in your kobo account, gutenberg is always free.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by RowdyRuff

Am sure a broken one will pop-up on a well known auction site 'for parts', so that you can restore its' dignity. Are the free books availabble to download from your Kobo account, maybe...?

No. They aren't added to your Kobo account but are part of the device. They were all just public domain books anyways.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Vivian

You'd think I would have thought of that, huh?

It worked. Thanks salamanderjuice.

The covering on the buttons was such a mess, I had to take it off. Now I have to press the exposed buttons on the circuit board. But it works. I'm amazed.

Funny thing: when the Kobo first came out, it came with a hundred books. Those are gone now. It said I had no books when I started it up. I had to plug it in and sync it.

I explored this issue two years back. Your problem is that these books were available on Kobos in 2010, eleven years ago. Most links to the 100 books bundle were dead when I researched this.

You can read what I discovered here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...46&postcount=5

The best thing I found was an old Kobo.com web page that listed all 100 books so you can hunt them down on Project Gutenberg. https://web.archive.org/web/20100503...ee-ebooks.html

I’d start with the Kobo shop first instead of PG. Kobo’s editions are still available to download free, and they are laid out much nicer than the OCR messes that PG often offers.

You may also find this post from 2015 of use. Somebody created downloadable lists of the books for reference. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=254119


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[salamanderjuice]

Standard Ebooks also has really nice versions of public domain books.

[Vivian]

Thanks for the advice on books, everyone.

[Alastair_S]

Re. books. Don't forget MobileRead's own library.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/eb...hp?forumid=130

[Vivian]

I didn't know about that! Cool.