Questions about undemo-ing a Kindle DX graphite

[megacoupe]

So it seems that the kindle serial console times out after a certain amount of time (30 seconds maybe). I was in the middle of the dd if=/mnt/us/rootfs.img of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 command (don't know how long the file transfer for a 400mb file should take) when the DXG loaded up it's regular demo software again and the console froze.

I rebooted and now I'm stuck at the "Please wait a moment while your kindle starts up" screen. In the console, it's looping through some process over and over again, too quickly to read what's going on. By pressing "enter" at the right moment, I can get into either uboot or the recovery menu... Which one of these options can help me out of my current jam?

[twobob]

400 Mb takes a WHILE (you could divide it by the bus speed but just think 1-2-3 hours or something? and you will be peachy for time)

Having not used the tool I had no idea it "timed out"? never heard of that.

Cripes, not even sure what the option are on that screen (you don't list them, I don't know them off by heart, nor would I be certain which ones would help if I could)

but listing your current options in recovery is probably a safe bet for getting more help.

I thought you could get it into some stable mode to upload this stuff???
Perhaps someone will have some information on that.

So..

list actual options (the likely ones at least)...

find out how to get the interface "stable" for the next attempt.

You were SO close.

good luck (never hurts)

[knc1]

The serial console connection does not "time out".

But erasing and re-programming the flash is a very power hungry operation.

The SoC will "reset" and perhaps try to do a "restart" on a low battery voltage alarm.

What you describe reads as if you started the write operation with a less than fully charged battery and now it is to far dis-charged to run the Kindle.

Re-charge the battery!
Note: In this condition, it may take a few days to re-charge while the Kindle is in its "under voltage - safety mode".

[Begemot]

Perhaps, the timing out is something like this :
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66170

I was having problems too with checking forums and doing other things and getting the UART clk gated message from short inactivity period.

I simply commented out the lines related to that particular "if" check in the /etc/init.d/power file (leaving only

echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/mxcintuart.0/uart_clk_state

as I could not write to /mnt/us directory (kept getting NFS stale there).

This is not optimal but now I do not have to worry serial going to sleep.

[knc1]

I think that if you follow the code path that control function is effecting, you will find that only applies to periods of UART in-activity.

The 3 or 4 hour transfer of a 400Mbyte file does not qualify as "in-active".
Re-charge the battery.

[cavorite]

From twobob's transcription of seaniko7's video, you have to interrupt the boot by pressing [enter] at the right time (too soon puts you into u-boot) to get into the recovery menu.

Next step is to choose option 3 LOAD MMC0 over USB storage. Then you will need the Fiona password.
Option 3 makes MMC0 available for access via USB.

Connect Kindle to computer via USB, run dmesg to get mount point info for the MMC0 device. Let's say it's /dev/sdb1.

Unmount /dev/sdb1

This may be optional: mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1

dd if=/mnt/location_of/rootfs.img of=/dev/mmcblk0p1


All of the above that is correct is credited to twobob. All that is incorrect is my contribution and theory.


Edit:
Seaniko7 did this on a K3, not a DX. I do not know that the procedure has been done successfully on a DX. My own experience is that I can get into the recovery menu as he did (some choices are slightly different), but I am not given a chance to enter the password. Immediately after I press the 3 key, I am told that the password is incorrect and bounced out of recovery. I am not given a chance to enter the password. Note that once you are in the recovery menu there is a ten second timer to select an option. This can be seen on the video.

This approach seems to be one of two that have potential. Transfer through the internal serial port seems to be getting caught by an inactivity timeout. The other method - use of the recovery menu to mount MMC0 - is (for me) getting stuck at the point described above.

Additional note: In the video with a K3, there is a "recovery menu". On my DXG, the equivalent is labeled "developer menu". More interestingly, when in the developer menu, the DX screen shows the odd looking developer menu that megacoupe posted in a different thread. I believe he got the menu by rebooting and pressing keyboard keys. This method (interrupting the boot at the indicated point) is an alternate way.