Mini Help needed for bricked Kobo Mini

[mrstorey]

Hi there, and thank you in advance for your help!

Both my son and I have Kobo Minis.

Mine was working perfectly running 3.19.5761-s until today, when I decided to drop the Kobo Glo 4.35.20400 update file into its .kobo folder.

The result was the dreaded three vertical dots - see attached photograph. I've tried a soft reset (power button) and a hard reset (using the hole at the back of the device). Neither worked.

I'm desperate to get it working again - I take my Mini everywhere with me.

I've taken out the 4Gb SD card and I can see the contents of it on my Mac. I've tried copying the following hidden folders/file from my son's Mini to my non-working one. Sadly, it didn't help.

Folders:
.adobe-digital-editions
.fseventsd
.kobo
.kobo-images
.Spotlight-V100

File:
ddriveinfo.calibre

I was pretty comfortable flashing ROMs and using hex editors on Android devices and ereaders many years ago, but I can't remember any of it now, so please explain it like I'm 5.

What, if anything, can I do to restore the non-working Kobo?

Thank you so much in advance for your advice/support/guidance.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by mrstorey

I was pretty comfortable flashing ROMs and using hex editors on Android devices and ereaders many years ago, but I can't remember any of it now, so please explain it like I'm 5.

What, if anything, can I do to restore the non-working Kobo?

Thank you so much in advance for your advice/support/guidance.

Since you do have a working Mini on hand, I would suggest checking out the Memory Upgrade Mod Guide (With Pictures) thread. This will require removing the uSD cards from your two Minis since there are multiple partitions and only one is exposed over the USB connection. I'm not that familiar with the tools used on a Mac to create and restore the image other than quite a few people seem to have used Balena Etcher to do so.

You can create an image from the working Mini and copy it to a uSD card for your non-working Mini. After doing the restore, if you still have the files, restore the exposed partition for your Mini.

I would recommend trying a new uSD card since more often than not, the issues are caused by the original card starting to fail.

Good luck and don't be afraid to ask if you need more advice.

[mrstorey]

David. That worked perfectly, thank you.

I'd totally forgotten that "there are multiple partitions and only one is exposed over the USB connection" - I used Balena Etcher to clone the SD cards and it worked first time. Thank you again.

PS One small thing that you might be able to advise on. The serial numbers for the two devices are now identical. Is this an issue, and if so, is there any way of remedying it? Sorry if that's an annoying question - I did have a hunt around and couldn't see any obvious answers either way.

Many thanks,

Michael.

[DNSB]

Good to hear your Mini is back working!

If you use a hex editor, at offset 0x200 in the image file, you will find the serial number. There are other copies of it elsewhere in the image but that seems to be the one that is used when factory resetting a Kobo.

I don't think it is much of an issue since quite a few people out there seem to be happily using an all 0s serial number.

[mrstorey]

Thank you David. I seem to snap a plastic tab inside every time I open up the Kobo Mini, so I'm going to leave it for now, but I'm grateful for the reassurance and the very clear instructions how to change it if needed.

Thank you again.

Michael.

[NiLuJe]

You can probably just write it from a telnet/SSH shell without having to open the device at all, FWIW.

(Not that I've ever done this myself, mind you ;o)).