Kubrick: Live CD to debrick Kindle 3, 4, and Touch

[samuelgb]

Thanks for your reply.

I tried that before posting here. I also have tried since then with an Acer running Windows 7. I can access its BIOS too. I have changed everything that I (think I) should change but still nothing.

I really wonder if there is something wrong with the DVD, but it shows in both computer as having the boot.iso file burned in it.

The initial explanation in the post seems pretty straightforward and I would like at least to be able to run the program to have a go. A bit frustrated after my Kindle froze just this week.

Thanks again

[JimmyR]

How did you burn the disc? What are the contents of the disc now? If you simply placed boot.iso onto the disc as a file, that will not work.

Burn a Disc Image from an ISO or IMG file in Windows 7

[samuelgb]

The content is an the boot.iso file. I placed the file there and clicked burn.

I have managed to access Kubrick through a virtual machine. I know it is not a recommended option, but at least it has shown that the .iso is bootable but not the DVD in which I burned it.

It gets stuck when trying to turn the Kindle into USB downloader mode (it shouldn't take long after following those steps with the buttons, should it?), I wonder if my kindle is a goner or worth trying from a CD/DVD once I manage to burn it properly...

[knc1]

Originally Posted by samuelgb

Thanks for your reply.

I tried that before posting here. I also have tried since then with an Acer running Windows 7. I can access its BIOS too. I have changed everything that I (think I) should change but still nothing.

I really wonder if there is something wrong with the DVD, but it shows in both computer as having the boot.iso file burned in it.

The initial explanation in the post seems pretty straightforward and I would like at least to be able to run the program to have a go. A bit frustrated after my Kindle froze just this week.

Thanks again

In that case, it isn't done correctly, it is not a visible file, it is a surface image of the DVD.
You burn it the same way you would burn any other disk image file.
I.E: as a binary copy to disk operation, not as a file to be stored on the disk.

[samuelgb]

Thanks for the tip. I have now burned it properly. It doesn't work in the Lenovo with W10. It does say that the system does not support a CD/DVD boot.

It works on the Acer run on W7 without having to do anything beyond switching the laptop with the DVD in. However, it doesn't go beyond the initial image of the Kubrick...

[knc1]

Originally Posted by samuelgb

Thanks for the tip. I have now burned it properly. It doesn't work in the Lenovo with W10. It does say that the system does not support a CD/DVD boot.

It works on the Acer run on W7 without having to do anything beyond switching the laptop with the DVD in. However, it doesn't go beyond the initial image of the Kubrick...

It is not supposed to.
That is all you get.
It is a ram resident version of Linux, it should never touch your Windows storage.

Google "Linux Live CD" to learn about such things in general.

[samuelgb]

So this won't work in a Windows computer? Anything I could do then?

I'm running it through a VM in Windows but it gets stuck in putting it into USB downloader mode. I do the key combination, the kindle is recognised by the laptop but nothing else happens.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by samuelgb

So this won't work in a Windows computer? Anything I could do then?

I'm running it through a VM in Windows but it gets stuck in putting it into USB downloader mode. I do the key combination, the kindle is recognised by the laptop but nothing else happens.

Windows, *BSD, Max OSanything - it does not matter.

I repeat -
It is a ram resident, Linux operating system, it does not touch the machine's disk storage.
I.E: It does not, can not, matter what is recorded on the machine's disk storage.

But you need to run it on the bare hardware.
It is very, very rare that it will run on virtualized hardware, it needs real hardware, not pretend.

If your machine can't boot from USB, if your machine can't boot from DVD - get a different machine.
That is your only choice.

[Glorfindel]

Are you unable to use the Acer for this?

[UncleRogi]

I have two things going on with two different devices. I'll post them separately.

Okay - first off, thank y'all for making such a great tool!

I debricked my Kindle 4 (Model #: D01100) using Kubrick and upon reboot, it asked for what language I wanted, followed by setting up WiFi, followed by registering with Amazon. All that worked great. I successfully registered the device via the WiFi. This was all done via booting a computer with a DVD made from the Kubrick 3/4/5 boot.iso. In other words, not a Virtual Session. I gotta say, Kubrick was soooo easy to use. Just followed the directions on the screen and voila! - done. Note: I opted to not jailbreak the Kindle, just kill the files and settings.

Sadly, after the Kubrick restart and Kindle setup, WiFi wouldn't work. For example, I go into the setup menu and select "Sync and check for new content" (in order to download my books) and I get an error message that my Kindle is unable to connect at this time. I try to go to the Kindle store, same error. This is just seconds after successfully registering the device via WiFi. I restarted the Kindle - no difference. So I figured that I might need to update the Kindle to a newer OS. Regrettably, after getting into menu>setup>menu, the option to "Update Your Kindle" is grayed out. Interestingly, the WiFi in settings is showing me properly connected to my WiFi.

I'm a bit of a newb at this, but I've read a ton of stuff out there, so I thought I would go out and DL the newest OS for it. After Kubrick, it's at 4.1.1. According to Amazon, I need to first install 4.1.2 and then install 4.1.3. So I copied 4.1.2 to the root of the Kindle drive. Just to be clear here, I attached the Kindle with a USB cable and copied the file to the root of the drive that Windows gave me for the Kindle.

Upon safely disconnecting the Kindle and restarting it, it got about halfway through a restart progress bar, and restarted again. It repeated that pattern for at least 4 times before I figured something was wrong and Kubrick'ed it back to 4.1.1 again. Note: This time I selected the jailbreak, along with killing the files and settings. I have not tried to do anything more to the Kindle, instead reaching out to the pro's on what to do.

What am I doing wrong?

Uncle Rogi

[UncleRogi]

As promised, my second device and issue.

I have what may be a demo version of a Kindle Touch paperwhite (Model #: DP75SDI) purchased off eBay. I can successfully register it with Amazon, but I can't get into the setup menu (grayed out). I can't drop files into it from a USB connection because Windows tells me to "Please insert a disk into D:".

Holding the power button for 30+ seconds (factory reset) doesn't restore the grayed out menu items. So I figured that I need to reflash it. The instructions from Kubrick (using the Kindle 5/Touch option) instructs me to hold the power and the home buttons to get the process started, but I literally only have a power button. And yes, I've looked carefully at the entire Kindle - back, front, top, bottom, left and right edges. Nada. Just a power button on the bottom edge.

I'm stuck on getting rid of the "sample" files and opening up all the features of the Kindle because I can't figure how to get past this first critical step. I've tried holding the power button in for varying amounts of time and I've stumbled into nothing in the way of solutions.

Oddly enough, I *am* able to get to my Cloud files. When I selected that on the Kindle home screen, it asked me to setup WiFi and it went and grabbed my files. And they're even Device WhisperSync'ed from my other Kindle. Not sure if that can be leveraged in some way, but I wanted to share everything I did.

Oh yeah, I also have a fastboot cable if I need to use one of those for whatever reason.

This one's got me stumped - Ideas?

Uncle Rogi

[knc1]

Yes -
Look up our thread on how to de-demo your Kindle using search bar commands.

[UncleRogi]

Thank you KNC - while it took a LOT of searching to find it, I did find several references to search bar commands.

The commands ";demo" and ";exit_demo" would not work. They simply came back and said they weren't found.

The command ";dsts" did allow me to get into the settings, but not much I could really do in there.

The key command was ";uzb". It finally allowed me to get to the kindle's contents in windows. Finding the right software release was a different story. After a bunch more of searching, I finally found what I needed to know about my kindle (based on the first 4 characters of the serial # being B05A and the current OS being 5.4.0) and my first attempt to put 5.6.1.1 on it failed. I had to find a really old copy of 5.4.3.2 on an unpublished Amazon webpage and that worked. When I randomly restarted it to see if it would lose the sample books, it again updated and took me 5.6.1.0.6 automatically. I think I'll stop there for now on that one.

Any ideas on my other Kindle that I Kubrick'ed and it refuses to use a valid WiFi?

Thanks again,

Uncle Rogi

[knc1]

I had you go look, because I don't remember the commands, only that we have them here.

But you did find the ones you needed -
The command to export storage so you could put a non-demo update file on it -
The command to reach settings so you could use "Update Your Kindle".

= = = = =

What do you mean by "valid wifi" ?
How could one be "invalid"?

[UncleRogi]

Originally Posted by knc1

What do you mean by "valid wifi" ?
How could one be "invalid"?

On the kindle, it shows full bars on signal strength and that it's connected to the WiFi, thus "valid". However, when attempting to sync the device or use the store, it claims it cannot connect. Very odd.

BUT... I continued to play around with it, sure that if I could get an update to stick, it might fix it. Turns out that I was doing the update wrong. I found on the internet that to update a kindle, you needed to copy the file to the root and then restart it. Turns out that there actually is some incorrect information out there on the internet.

You're supposed to copy the file, disconnect the usb and then use the menu>setup>menu>update kindle method to properly do it. Not doing the update the right way is how I bricked it in the first place. It seems to get stuck in a loop of getting halfway through a restart and then restarting again when you just DL and restart it.

Anywho, Kubrick puts it at 4.1.1. Updating to 4.1.2 fixed the issue with the WiFi not connecting. I then updated to 4.1.3 and it's all done and back to normal.

I wonder if anyone else has come across this issue too? That might be a good note to include on Kubrick (to update the device to 4.1.2 at a minimum.)

Thanks for all the help! Definitely a great tool (Kubrick) that y'all have!

Uncle Rogi