Touch Updating stuck Kobo

[Stulle]

Hello!

I'm new to this forum. I tried to search here for my current problem but did not find a suitable solution, so please excuse me if I might have missed the answer.

I got some Kobo Touch from a former shop, early N905 (no B or C), so they don't have the internal SD-card.
Unfortunately they are not accessible via USB, they don't show up on the PC or Mac (tried both). Charging through USB works. Looks like they screwed up after firmware update.

They are obviously functional, I can go onto the menus, restart , read the preloaded KOBO how-to ebook, set back to factory settings etc. But I can't register through Kobo desktop SW, because the Kobo isn't seen by the PC. Unfortunately this means I even can't load books via external SD card or WiFi, because even this requires a registration at first.

One goes directly into screensaver screen after booting, but reset to factory setting didn't help.

Firmware is 1.9.17. This old fw did not ask whether it should connect to PC after USB connection.
I would like to upgrade the Kobos to later firmware, because I hope it will fix the problem. It's worth a try, I think.

So I search for a solution to access the Kobos somehow (e.g. some hidden terminal mode which works even if it will not show up as storage device), or just upgrade through (external) SD-card.
There was a famous SD-card update for screwed up fw updates especially for canadian users, but I was not able to find an image of this (and are not sure if it will work for early Touch as well).

So perhaps some of you has this SD-card image, or another plan how to prepare a SD (e.g.based on current FW files), so the Kobo would like to boot from it??

Again, this early Touch don't have internal SD which can be taken out and be rewritten outside...

Thank you very much!!


Best regards,
Michael.

[tshering]

Originally Posted by Stulle

Firmware is 1.9.17. This old fw did not ask whether it should connect to PC after USB connection.

I think this old fw did ask, provided the usb cable was able to transfer data (and was not only for charging). Are you sure yours is a usb data cable? I guess you tried it with the same cable that works on your working Kobos.

What is happening after you factory reset the reader? Does it ask you to connect to the pc? And there you get stuck since it is impossible to connect? Or does it not ask at all?

[meeera]

I can't remember what a Kobo does in Demo Mode - is it a possibility? If so, type

demo mode off

into the search bar.

Did you definitely successfully factory reset the device, or did you do a simple pinhole reset? Agree with trying a different cable, too.

[davidfor]

Stulle: The first thing you need to do is a factory reset. The N905 Touch comes with either 1.9.11 or 1.9.12 as the factory firmware. 1.9.17 was released about nine months after the N905. Any N905 with it has been upgraded.

If the factory reset from the System Info page of the settings doesn't work, try using the buttons. Power off and then hold the home button down while turning the device on. Release the home button when the LED starts to flash.

As to "some hidden terminal mode" or other way to restore these device, if there was one, don't you think it would be easy to find here? There are a lot of people who have gotten into trouble with an N905 Touch. The only thing we have been able to tell them is "sorry". And the Touch have never been updateable via the SD card. I think the original Kobo (non-WiFi) was, and maybe the WiFi, but none of the newer devices have been.

[Stulle]

Hello!

Thanks for your quick replies!

The two different USB-cables I use work pretty well e.g. with my N905C and other USB devices.

It looks like fw 1.9.x really didn't ask if it should connect to PC or not. These Kobos didn't ask what to do when connected to a USB charger (2.x and 3.0.x did ask), and I had just one of these Kobos which succesfully get USB connection to the computer (worked after replacing battery, because the original was dead). It also didn't ask if it should connect, Kobo desktop then quickly updated it from 1.9.17 to 3.0.18. Works fine now.

I think factory reset worked fine, as LED first blinks red, then quickly flashes blue/white, shows the restoring screen with rotating hourglass and so on. After this it starts with language selection and wants to launch registration via Kobo Desktop.
I tried from setup menu, but also holding home button while connecting the battery.

About the restoring mechanism via SD-card: In fact I easily found it here (was originally for earlier Kobo reader). It has proved to work for this other reader, it looks like is was just sent as a physically SD card by Rakuten/Kobo itself. Some people asked for an image, but it was never posted. Unfortunately the thread stopped 5 years ago.
Even if it is for another model: The Kobo Touch started in the same era. As it it also was a reader with fixed flash (no internal removable SD-card, this first came with 905B) it might also react to the same mechanism.
If it's just starting to boot from an external card, it might be possible to change the firmware to the newer ones.
It's worth a try as these units are somehow bricked anyway.

I'm not sure about how many old N905s are out there, most threads care about 905B and C, so that's why I think it's worth asking...


Thanks!

Bye,
Michael

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Stulle

It looks like fw 1.9.x really didn't ask if it should connect to PC or not. These Kobos didn't ask what to do when connected to a USB charger (2.x and 3.0.x did ask), and I had just one of these Kobos which succesfully get USB connection to the computer (worked after replacing battery, because the original was dead). It also didn't ask if it should connect, Kobo desktop then quickly updated it from 1.9.17 to 3.0.18. Works fine now.

Hmm, I would have sworn that the 1.9.x firmware prompted when you plugged it in. But, the only time I see it is the few moments after factory resetting one of my Touches.

I think factory reset worked fine, as LED first blinks red, then quickly flashes blue/white, shows the restoring screen with rotating hourglass and so on. After this it starts with language selection and wants to launch registration via Kobo Desktop.

This should be back to 1.9.11 or 1.9.12. There is an option with these firmware versions to skip setup. From memory, it isn't immediately obvious, I think you have to cancel or close a window at some point. What I don't remember is if you can setup WiFi from there. But, it will read the SD card.

I tried from setup menu, but also holding home button while connecting the battery.

About the restoring mechanism via SD-card: In fact I easily found it here (was originally for earlier Kobo reader). It has proved to work for this other reader, it looks like is was just sent as a physically SD card by Rakuten/Kobo itself. Some people asked for an image, but it was never posted. Unfortunately the thread stopped 5 years ago.
Even if it is for another model: The Kobo Touch started in the same era. As it it also was a reader with fixed flash (no internal removable SD-card, this first came with 905B) it might also react to the same mechanism.
If it's just starting to boot from an external card, it might be possible to change the firmware to the newer ones.
It's worth a try as these units are somehow bricked anyway.

Except of course they are different devices, with different internal hardware, running very different versions of the firmware. The loading of firmware from the SD card was stopped a long time before the Touch was produced. There is no support in the factory firmware on the Touch or any later device for doing this.

I'm not sure about how many old N905s are out there, most threads care about 905B and C, so that's why I think it's worth asking...

My problem with your post, and why I might have sounded a bit snarky, was that it seemed to imply that if there was a solution, we wouldn't be discussing it. We would. Even if it needed extra hardware it would be discussed, or at least referred to each time one of these requests came along. There is more discussion about the N905B and N905C because they can be fixed. If you look through the image requests threads, there are enough posts with requests for an N905 image followed by a "Sorry, can't do" response, that anyone searching and reading the results should quickly find out what was happening. And still people keep asking.

Having said that, for full disclosure, I should say that there is a way. There is a way to write the internal storage to an SD card and later restore from the card. But, it requires you getting into the device and changing the firmware. And that means connecting to a PC and putting a file on the device that will be processed when the device is connected. So, yes you can do it. But, if you can't connect to the PC, you can't do it.

[filmo]

I had 2 original Kobo wifi readers they were ok but never liked the 5 way switch rubber cover that made it hard to turn page. Gave them away and they are still being used last year when I talked to current owner. Kobo touch readers are much better in every way except higher cost. I think new touch screen Kobo readers are well worth higher cost. Good luck fixing your reader.

[Stulle]

Hello!

Davidfor, sorry to have bothered you.

I just stumbled on this nearly secret external SD-card update for the first Kobo. Canada only, no image to find. Strange and interesting ;-

The Touch uses some kind of linux (resp. Android) in the underwear, as the early Kobo already did. Of course chipset and firmware are completely different. So my idea was just to see how the card was prepared to boot from, and if a Touch also tries to do something with the card, I would of course replace the fw files by Touch Mk3 ones.

It might have been that no one ever had tried what happens when inserting this bootable external SD-card in a Touch (no availabiliy of card, don't want to brick the device). But If this was done, it's fine. Hast hadn't found a hint on trying this.

I wonder why Rakuten has not implemented it to the Touch as well. They should have needed it for development and service of a messed up device, I think. Of course not officially supported (as the canadian mystery card).
But maybe that's why they had changed to a removable internal SD-card at 905B and 905C.


By the way, FW 1.9.17 allows you to skip the registration. Maybe that's enough when you can load the books by USB. But when you insert a SD-card with ebooks, it gives you a popup telling you first need to register. Also wifi search is not possible then ;-)



Bye,
Michael