Original "Simple" debricking methods for K5-Touch, K4-Mini, & K3-Keyboard

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by Poetcop

That's good reading! But it looks like the solution the two of you came up with was to boot into fastboot from diags mode, and diags mode isn't working for me. So I think I will try getting linux running in a virtual machine to run the fastboot tool, unless someone can get the PC fastboot tool working.

I wonder if things would change if I could charge it all the way. It only seems to want to charge when it's in "plug-me-in" mode - no matter what state it's in with a black screen, and whether wall-charger or computer charging, it always seems close to running out of batteries. Of course this would be easier to investigate if I had a way of querying the battery state - very hard to infer from the limited information given by its behaviour.

I compiled fastboot for linux, and that is what I use. I use MfgTool in WinXP in a VM, then use fastboot in the linux host PC (outside the VM). That way the kindle does not get unplugged. It should work fine the other way around too, with linux in the VM and windows on the outside.

I first charge a dead kindle on a wall charger for several hours, then use MfgTool to boot to fastboot mode, and charge it for several more hours, before attempting to flash the diags partition or boot to diags mode.

Fastboot mode contains good battery recharging code. The battery will drain while bricked or while in diags mode. It does not go into sleep mode in those cases, until the battery is discharged. You do not even get a "your kindle needs recharging" until you charge it enough so it CAN boot far enough from the main system partition to detect that it has a low battery.

Just leave it in fastboot mode while bricked, when not using it, and plugged into a wall charger. After debricking, you can rely on main bootmode to do the screensaver sleep thing...

[muydificil]

Hi,

As I had a kindle touch working, I used mfgtool on it in order to boot in diagnostics mode so I could check and compare with the bricked one I already had.

The thing is that the working one no longer works, and seems to be bricked also.

The steps I follow were:

-Start the kindle in recovery mode
-load diagnostics with Mfg tool
-from diagnostics menu start fastboot mode
-check the kindle with yifan lu fastboot only with reading commands. No flashing at all. only "fastbool getvar <varname>" and "fastboot check <partition>"
-disconnect usb

at this point the kindle didn't reboot in normal mode, so I started it up in recovery mode again and with the mfgtool started the kindle with the "kindle main" profile option.

and that's all, never came back to life again,

Is it possible that I could brick a working kindle touch only with the mfgtool program? 'cos it's the only program that has written into the device.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by muydificil

Hi,

As I had a kindle touch working, I used mfgtool on it in order to boot in diagnostics mode so I could check and compare with the bricked one I already had.

The thing is that the working one no longer works, and seems to be bricked also.

The steps I follow were:

-Start the kindle in recovery mode
-load diagnostics with Mfg tool
-from diagnostics menu start fastboot mode
-check the kindle with yifan lu fastboot only with reading commands. No flashing at all. only "fastbool getvar <varname>" and "fastboot check <partition>"
-disconnect usb

at this point the kindle didn't reboot in normal mode, so I started it up in recovery mode again and with the mfgtool started the kindle with the "kindle main" profile option.

and that's all, never came back to life again,

Is it possible that I could brick a working kindle touch only with the mfgtool program? 'cos it's the only program that has written into the device.

The profiles I provided with MfgTool do not change anything (not even the idme bootmode var). They just select in memory only what mode to boot, then continue the boot process.

The fastboot tool has some known problems, but it should not change anything on mmc (permanent storage) in your kindle unless you do a setvar instead of a getvar, or an erase, or a flash.

It is normal for the fastboot "check" functions to fail, because they check the ORIGINAL flash header CRC32, and partition contents CHANGE when you access the filesystem in them, which makes the partition flash header CRC32 no longer valid.

Beware that fastboot is not able to flash the mmcblk0p1 (main system) partition, which is too large (even when it falsely reports "success"). It can flash mmcblk0p2 (diags), and there is an image available with SSH preinstalled.

You can boot to fastboot to flash the SSH version of diags, then boot to diags to export the USB drive so you can copy stuff from it and write stuff to it, and you can start SSH so you can change stuff inside you kindle from the linux command line (such as writing a backup image file stored on the USB drive to /dev/mmcblk0p1, or copying /dev/zero to /dev/mmcblk0p3 to file a full or damaged /var/local partition (but that will also erase your collections database and user settings such as locale and timezone).

You did not describe doing anything that could damage a working kindle, other than putting it in a mode where the battery cannot charge effectively.

I suggest charging the battery as described in other posts (wall charger, then charge in fastboot mode until fully charged).

A kindle should normally be kept in "normal" main mode, where it will automatically go to screensaver power-save mode. A bricked kindle should be kept in fastboot mode, connected to a wall charger.

At least that is MY opinion (based on information gathered from the posts of others, and from my own personal experience).

[geekmaster]

UPDATE: Added "Successful Debricking Reports" to first post in this thread. I forgot that I helped so many people...

There are enough people in that list to have a "Kindle Brick-Owner's Club" party...

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=170929

[muydificil]

First of all, thanks for your patience as I'm new with all this.

As I told you a have two kindle touch with me, one that was previously working and the other one previously bricked.

I've followed all the steps for debricking my 2nd kindle touch (the previously bricked one), as following.

1.- getting the partition 2 into the kindle with fastboot from yifan lu
2.- restart kindle in main mode
3.- place a copy of the mmcblk0p1.img on the kindle usb disk unit

I guess that up to here it worked fine because I could do the following:

4.- restart in diagnostic mode, and start usbnet service
5.- connect via ssh (user: root pass:mario) ( I used putty.exe in windows)
6.- dd the previous img file into /dev/mmcblk0p1
7.- reboot in main mode
8.- unplug the usb

ok, the thing is that the kindle touch shows on the screen the picture of the guy reading under a tree and it won't start, no matter how do I press the start button, 5sec, 20 sec or whatever.

the funny thing (actually I dont think it's that funny ) is that the other kindle that stopped working (the one of the previous post that I had done nothing weird on it) is in the same screen (tree) and acts exactly the same on the start button pressing. By the way I have that one charging as you told me.

am I missing something here? Is there a way for the kindle touch to return to the side of the living ones from this point?

diagnostics mode shows an 87% of battery charged, but I don't know if I can trust this anymore.

thanks a lot in advance



EDIT: Ok I've realized that I started in the wrong way after using the mfgtool to start with "kindle main" profile, here's what I got wrong,

inmediatly after using mfgtool in "Kindle main" profile for the final restart, the kindle must be unplugged from the usb and to start, only press the turn on buttont briefly, like half a second or so. I tried to reebot the kindle with the turn on button for five seconds and it got stucked in the logo screen.

The bricked kindle gets to the "needs repair" screen, and I don't know what else to do.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by muydificil

am I missing something here? Is there a way for the kindle touch to return to the side of the living ones from this point?

diagnostics mode shows an 87% of battery charged, but I don't know if I can trust this anymore.

thanks a lot in advance

What worked for some people in your situation is to reset the /var/local partition (which may be full or corrupted) with this:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0p3 bs=4K

Try that...

[muydificil]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

What worked for some people in your situation is to reset the /var/local partition (which may be full or corrupted) with this:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0p3 bs=4K

Try that...

Geekmaster:

I'm changing my religion and YOU ARE MY NEW GOD!!!!

I just did that and it's working, maybe that last dd sentence should be included in the guide (just an opinion...)

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by muydificil

...
I just did that and it's working, maybe that last dd sentence should be included in the guide (just an opinion...)

It has now been added to the first page. Thanks for the suggestion.

[wsxhwyy]

I found that data.tar.gz method is not working. When I rebooted into diags, I found data.tar.gz is still alive. Any possible reasons? Or my /var/local is full?

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by wsxhwyy

I found that data.tar.gz method is not working. When I rebooted into diags, I found data.tar.gz is still alive. Any possible reasons? Or my /var/local is full?

My data.tar.gz does put its payload in /var/local so if that was COMPLETELY full, extracting data.tar.gz would fail (and probably not get deleted after being extracted).

You can use fastboot to install the diags image with SSH preinstalled, the use a diags SSH shell to do:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0p3 bs=4K

That worked for multiple people recently (as seen above in previous posts).

So far, all the published jailbreaks write their payload to /var/local, which can fail when /var/local is full.

But I have a *secret* jailbreak method that does not use a payload. It just executes /mnt/us/RUNME.sh directly, but only when activated by a diags menu selection. I have been saving that for when other jailbreaks are disabled, but that is not so important know that we can just flash an *already jailbroken" partition image to the kindle.

Unless you have a HARDWARE problem, you can recover ANY kindle (touch or k4nt, so far) by erasing the /var/local partition and/or flashing the main and/or diags partitions with good copies (either "factory restored" images, or "selected hacks pre-installed" images).

[murz_07]

Hello.
I have different problem now.
My Kindle does not charge.
After about 30 minutes LED turns off and when I try to boot in diags it says "critical battery".
I charge using wall charger and PC.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by murz_07

Hello.
I have different problem now.
My Kindle does not charge.
After about 30 minutes LED turns off and when I try to boot in diags it says "critical battery".
I charge using wall charger and PC.

After you get enough charge with a wall charger to use MfgTool, switch to fastboot mode.

Try charging in fastboot mode. When my K4 (and my touch) were in fastboot mode and connected to a USB port, the serial port showed a steady voltage increase until it reached its maximum voltage.

This takes a number of hours from a low-voltage battery condition.

[murz_07]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

After you get enough charge with a wall charger to use MfgTool, switch to fastboot mode.

Try charging in fastboot mode. When my K4 (and my touch) were in fastboot mode and connected to a USB port, the serial port showed a steady voltage increase until it reached its maximum voltage.

This takes a number of hours from a low-voltage battery condition.

It does NOT charge. After about 30 minutes LED turns off.

[hostar]

Originally Posted by murz_07

It does NOT charge. After about 30 minutes LED turns off.

When battery is low charged and when Kindle is bricked, you can't trust the LED.

[murz_07]

Originally Posted by hostar

When battery is low charged and when Kindle is bricked, you can't trust the LED.

Alright, I'll leave it charging overnight, ignoring LED.