Any way to fake-register a K2 with non-working 3G so I can get Collections back?

[ATDrake]

So, the 3G on my ancient Kindle 2 International stopped working, and I thought it might have been a problem with the device.

It turns out it kind of was, but not in the way I thought, and unless the server which the 411 page claims is DOWN,DOWN,DOWN magically comes back UP,UP,UP for me and gives me a radio serial number so that I can connect to Amazon via 3G again, I'm just going to have to live without syncing access, etc.

Unfortunately, in an effort to fix the problem before I realized that it really wasn't on my end, I ended up doing a factory reset out of desperation, which of course wiped out my registration info (and apparently killed my ability to try and switch networks using the 311 trick, which it seems is something that also requires a registered K2).

TBH, I'm not all that bothered about losing the 3G, which hasn't worked since the middle of last year and which I thought they'd just turned off the service entirely for the K2 models since it's been so many years. But I really want to be able to at least create and use Collections locally on the device, which of course now I can't since it's no longer registered and can't even phone into Amazon to do so.

I don't suppose there any hack which can fake-register the K2 again for me, or at least get it to use Collections? If it's any help, I did do a "dd" backup of my Kindle's entire data partition before I started trying to "fix" things, though if there's some hidden drive stuff somewhere that didn't show up in Mac OS X's Disk Utility, then those hidden "system" folder files probably aren't going to be of any use.

ETA: I came across this: Simplest method to register your Kindle w/2.5.x firmware, if you live outside US. But it seems to be for the Kindle 2 US versions only, and I have a K2 International model, and I'm rather wary of messing it up any further, since it otherwise works okay and I can live without the sync/shopping functions, but I really want my Collections back, and to be able to manage them directly from the device itself.

ETA 2: Well, it looks like it can probably be done via usbnetwork, if I'm willing to risk that (don't have nearly enough CLI knowledge to feel comfortable with it, though I guess I was meaning to brush up on my Terminal skills this summer), at least on a Kindle DX and hopefully the K2 reginfo should be the same.

But I was hoping someone with better knowledge/search-fu would know of an easier and less intrusive way.

[eschwartz]

The "simplest method" should work fine, it actually claims to be for the international model.
But unfortunately it was uploaded through a filesharing service and the link appears to be dead.



The format of the reginfo file shouldn't be any different on the respective K2 models.
You could create the file and copy it to the Kindle, then use USBNetwork or launchpad+myts (terminal emulator for K3, might work on the K2 as well???) to copy the file across.

No need to dive into the deep end immediately, by editing on-device using `vi`.

[ATDrake]

There's a version of the "simplest method" where the download is still available, but it was specifically noted as having been updated for 3.2.1, so I'm mildly wary of trying it. And unless I read some stuff really incorrectly, which is quite possible, it was originally for the K2 US model which had IIRC Sprint as a carrier so the 3G was internationally incompatible, unlike the 3G International version which used AT&T, and the hack existed so that people living internationally could use the incompatible US model which couldn't even phone home?

Mind you, the newer zip file does appear to contain separate versions for K3 and DX, and perhaps one of them might be sufficiently close enough that it won't break things if it fails. I don't suppose anyone has enough info about potential differences between/how much stuff got changed between K2i and DX and/or K3 to be able to advise if it's a good idea to try or not?

Thanks for the pointer to launchpad+myts. No one seems to have mentioned trying it with a K2 in what appears to be the main thread; it's all K3 and DX? But maybe I'll find some old threads or someone's blog where they actually do, and give it a try.

TBH, I'm probably just going to give up, spend the summer learning to do Linux From Scratch again (apparently you can run it in a VirtualBox on the Mac; I'd been wondering about that), and then just go the usbnetwork method once I feel sufficiently confident that I'm not likely to mess things up just by copy-pasting to the wrong place, even though there looks to be something of small tolerance for a margin of error in that regard, at least according to some other posters who seem to have done it.

In the meanwhile, at least I've still got my Sony to actually keep more than a dozen files I want to read upon at a time. And as a result of this incident, I did wind up discovering that the extra foreign language dictionaries you get with a Kindle for Mac install can indeed be transferred to a K2, so it hasn't been an entirely bad week, Amazon-wise.

[eschwartz]

The update_*.bin is presumably only updated because they are model-locked.

As I said, I don't think Amazon would've changed the format of the reginfo file -- and all the update_*.bin does is copy that file across (for the benefit of people who don't have USBNetwork or a terminal emulator working). You can repack the update for any model, using KindleTool.


Worst comes to worst, the copied-over file won't succeed in faking the registration and you are back where you started.

[ATDrake]

Cool, thanks! That sounds a lot easier to do (and with a far lesser chance of bricking) and I'll look into it. Hopefully everything will work out okay.