K5 Need Some Advice Unbricking A Kindle Touch - Spent Weeks Trying And Dunno What To Do!

[shrtcphr]

Hi there,
I have been reading posts on this forum for quite a few weeks attempting to unbrick my kindle touch and now I’m totally stumped. I’ll run down a list of what I’ve tried so far and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.
I’m starting to think it’s beyond repair without getting inside it physically.

First, I bricked it trying to follow some advice on how to compile Debian on to it and made some mistakes which I tried to clean up but obviously it didn’t go as planned.
It was jailbroken and battery was fine. Maybe a lil shorter than brand new but it still holds a charge for quite a long time.

I saw the post about Kubrick and decided to give it a go. It took me quite a while to get it to boot but once I did I got to the screen where it needs to be set into USB downloaded mode and hey presto! Nothing.
Ive tried so many different methods of button presses to get it in USB downloader mode but no success. I tried the normal hold power till the light goes off then hold home and release power a few seconds later then finally home. I’ve tried doing that but holding power for a minute. I even tried a post that said to hold home for a few seconds then press and hold power for 20 sec then release power and finally home.

When I plug the kindle into a USB port whether computer or power socket the light always comes on orange, and no matter how long I leave it it never turns green; but I did read the light is not a reliable guide on a bricked kindle. It is possible to get a green light ONLY when it is unplugged and I hold the power for 15 seconds. It will remain green until I plug it in or hold the power again for 15 seconds.

When the battery is low I do get the needs charging screen and when it is charged, most of the time I see the tree of life screen though there are times when plugging it in and out and doing hard reset the screen goes fully black except for a tiny row of white up the top that is kinda tilted and looks like a long triangle.

I’m desperate to get this working again. I don’t even want to put Debian on it anymore, I have a bunch of books for study that would be incredibly handy on an ereader and I love the e-ink.

Oh yea, it doesn’t show us on any computer at all when it’s plugged in, even if I try putting it in USB downloader mode. Please if someone has any advice or if this is something simple I’m missing, let me know.


Thanks

[NiLuJe]

If you could get us a dmesg snippet of how it actually shows up over USB, that'd be potentially helpful.

[shrtcphr]

First pic is without kindle plugged in, second is with it plugged in.
https://imgur.com/a/M9xVlkz

As you can see the both look the same.
It seems I can’t get it to show the green light at the moment though. I’ll put it back on the charge and see if that helps.
Also, I believe I’m using the right cable, but I have two exactly the same but only one kindle so I don’t know where the second one came from. They look the same as those white ones when you image search kindle official cable.

[shrtcphr]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

If you could get us a dmesg snippet of how it actually shows up over USB, that'd be potentially helpful.

I put it on the charge, this time with it powered on. The light went orange as usual but this time it actually turned green again when it finished. I left it on another 24 hours as I had some other things I had to do and when I checked back the light was off and I couldn’t turn it on when it was unplugged. Put it back on the charger and it charged all the way full again so it must have cut off charging when it first finished and then died from a bunch of intensive background processes.

I ran dmesg again this time fully charged with power on. This is the results.
https://imgur.com/a/LgRD4LQ


EDIT: Oh I was wrong about the cables. I was using ones that are similar but I found my original cable for certain now.

[NiLuJe]

Well, there's no data connection at all, for some reason, so, if no-one has any bright ideas, I'd say it's scrap.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Well, there's no data connection at all, for some reason, so, if no-one has any bright ideas, I'd say it's scrap.

OR
It is one of those "power only" USB cords.
The poster did seem to have some confusion about the USB cords on hand.

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by knc1

OR
It is one of those "power only" USB cords.
The poster did seem to have some confusion about the USB cords on hand.

That was my thought as well. Perhaps he can try his cords with a working device that exchanges data and see which ones permit a data connection. Then label the cords and try only the ones that transfer data with the other device on his Kindle.

Dave

[shrtcphr]

Originally Posted by knc1

OR
It is one of those "power only" USB cords.
The poster did seem to have some confusion about the USB cords on hand.

This is the cable I used on the last time I used dmesg.
https://imgur.com/a/esmW6pK

I’ll try charging it up one more time and see if I can get any different result. It may be that the battery has run out of steam although I would think there would be enough charge at 100% to at least get a connection.

There isn’t anything else I can try other than Kubrick to maybe get it working? I heard it was pretty hard to mess up the ability to run in USB downloader mode. It might be time to get a new kindle but I want to be sure I can’t get this one working first.
I’ll try using Kubrick on a USB instead of a CD.
Also I’m running dmesg from inside Kubrick after pressing alt + f5, not frim terminal in the linux OS. I’m just taking a photo of the screen that shows up too, I’m not sure if I’m meant to scroll up or something. It seems the CD drive info takes up the whole screen.


Thanks for the help. If I can’t get this working then does anyone wanna buy a papernotwhite weight?

[knc1]

The difference between 4 wire and 2 wire USB cables is not visible.
Either in person or in a picture.


Which is a big part of the reason they get confused.

[shrtcphr]

https://imgur.com/a/OeGMG9I

That’s the black screen I was talking about.
It happens when it’s when it’s dead and I put it on charge.
At first it will start on this screen:
https://imgur.com/a/h8rUpDu
But after around an hour it goes to the first screen automatically.

I can then hold the power button in for 20 sec then let go and the light will go green and show that second screen again. If I hold and release the power button the same way again it will reboot and the green light will still be on.
Then to turn it off while unplugged I do the sequence to go into USB downloader mode.
Hold power for 20 seconds until green light turns off. Hold home button, release power, release home. The green light will then turn off.

[shrtcphr]

Originally Posted by knc1

The difference between 4 wire and 2 wire USB cables is not visible.
Either in person or in a picture.


Which is a big part of the reason they get confused.

I don’t know what the difference between a 4 wire and 2 wire cable is, that’s just the one my kindle came with. I have used other cables in the past to transfer books and jailbreak etc too.