Resetting kindle does nothing

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by Barbara1955

I done that SEVERAL times on my Kindles & Kobos IT Works! Like taking back to Factory. Only ebooks get removed.

Then you did a quick format, which you didn't specify. A full format would remove the operating system as well, and it's not something that should be suggested for a Kindle.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Barbara1955

I done that SEVERAL times on my Kindles & Kobos IT Works! Like taking back to Factory. Only ebooks get removed.

I suppose it's possible that formatting just the partition might work safely. But it's not a suggestion I wanted to leave up with far more explicit instructions, and caveats.

(Especially considering the number of people there are wanting images for their Kobo because of some error that's wiped their firmware.)

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I suppose it's possible that formatting just the partition might work safely. But it's not a suggestion I wanted to leave up with far more explicit instructions, and caveats.

(Especially considering the number of people there are wanting images for their Kobo because of some error that's wiped their firmware.)

The quote is in Skydog's post as well.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Then you did a quick format, which you didn't specify. A full format would remove the operating system as well, and it's not something that should be suggested for a Kindle.

I agree that it is probably not a good idea to format a kindle's USB mass storage partition from a pc, but it is only a partition and does not contain the OS. The only ways to get to the kindle partition with the OS on it are over the internal serial port or to activate usbnet on a jailbroken kindle and login over wifi or the USB port.

(And thanks to pdurrant for removing the bad advice!)

[stumped]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I agree that it is probably not a good idea to format a kindle's USB mass storage partition from a pc, but it is only a partition and does not contain the OS.

It should be no riskier than following frequently given advice for when windows claims the device storage is corrupt and offers to repair it. usual advice in these forums is to say YES to that offer.

but if the device we are discussing is broken in that the flash drive cannot be written to, then format is going to fail just like reset does?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by stumped

It should be no riskier than following frequently given advice for when windows claims the device storage is corrupt and offers to repair it. usual advice in these forums is to say YES to that offer.

Embedded devices often are very particular about the format of partitions they export as USB mass storage. Consumer OSes have a nasty habit of deciding anything they don't recognize as corrupted and offering to format it. Since I have often formatted a drive with a linux partition, I always respond with NO to any unsolicited offer to format.

Originally Posted by stumped

but if the device we are discussing is broken in that the flash drive cannot be written to, then format is going to fail just like reset does?

If you do a format and the files are still there, that is pretty definitive that the flash memory has failed and is likely mounted readonly internal to the kindle.