A few questions from a new-ish nook user

[MusingCoyote]

Copied from my intro post over to here~

I do have a few questions, though, if anyone's inclined to answer them (if not, someone give me a nice kick, and I'll gladly edit them out and go post them over on the nook board)

1)Rooting: what does it take, what exactly does it do, and what are the risks?

2)Calibre uploads books to my my files/books folder, but they don't show up in my library unless I copy them to my B&N Downloads folder. it's not that big of an issue, but it is kind of a pain to keep two folders updated, as well of a horrible waste of space. -nvm, this one resolved itself-

3)sideloading: I've seen the term, I'm not sure what it means.

4)the nook doesn't seem to play nice with one of my USB drivers. lately it's been encountering an issue and turning off, making me go into my Device Manager and disabling/enabling it so that my trackball will work. anyone else having this issues?

and one new one. How do you flag/mark/whatever a thread for color? at least, I'm assuming that that means the thread's about the nook color?

[firefox]

1) Rooting is basically installing an altered version of the nook firmware so you have root, or full, access to the nook. It allows you to install other apps, use coverflow on your sideloaded eBooks and much more. More information can be found at http://nookdevs.com/Main_Page

3) Sideloading means putting books onto an eReader in the "my documents" folder on your nook. If you use calibre, the files you send to your nook from there are being sideloaded from. Barnes and Noble NOOKbooks are not sideloaded.

And unfortunately I don't have an answer for the other two questions, but I'm sure someone else will have one for you soon

firefox

[MusingCoyote]

Thanks for the quick answer Firefox

I'm a fairly competent computer person(not quite enough to consider myself a techie, but close enough), but I rarely get into things like rooting, for fear I'll break something important and/or unfixable, and for some reason, things like this tend to just...not work for me...^^;
Unfortunately, I like my computers, and my poor college-student self can't replace them if I should do something careless
However, what I'm seeing for the nook may be a bit too tempting for me to pass up, and I'm seriously considering this.
I just can't seem to find definitive answers to a few things I'm worried about:

Will the UI change at all if I root the nook? I like the nook UI, and I still want it to be primarily a ereader, just with a few extra things, most importantly a text editor-type app of some sort.

What can go wrong? seriously, I'd like to know if this will screw up the hardware at all, somehow

I'd also like to know if, should something serious go wrong software-wise, making it impossible to perform a factory reset on the device itself, would it be possible to format the ereader from my computer, and reinstall the firmware manually?

if any of these questions have obvious answers, I'm sorry ^^; I'm not an idiot, I swear, just in a state of perpetual sleep deprivation

[KryptoNyte]

Hi, MC. Before doing anything, I would recommend that you find a friend's computer and plug that thing in to see if the same driver issue persists, or if the device connects to this other machine without issue. If the same issue persists on 2 or 3 different computers, then I'd consider packing it up and taking it back for a replacement.

I'm not always a completely competent computer person, but I've found that breaking stuff (so to speak) is the most effective way for me to gain experience. With the NC, it's not quite so complicated. As it stands right now, if you "break" the software in some fashion, there is a method for resetting the device to stock. So far, I haven't come across anyone that was not able to reset to stock in the event of any problem.

As it is with any device, should I chose to modify it to the point where the device operates in a manner other than which it was designed, I understand that the risk is mine, and I have the cost of the device on my head. Now, with the quantity of folks how have already rooted successfully, or failed and reset/re-rooted, I felt comfortable taking on that risk.

As of today, the latest directions for rooting are here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=872490

To use that process, it's required that you bring the device up to Barnes and Noble upgrade version 1.0.1 prior to rooting.

If you have researched these issues for a few days, and are still extraordinarly concerned about it, then leave it stock, at least until you feel more comfortable with the rooting process.

You must have a micro-SD card that is at least 128 megabytes (most SD cards today are between 1 GB and 32 GB, so that's way more than enough). This SD card is going to get wiped completely - you can have it full of data, but make sure it's nothing important. You must remove the micro-SD card from the NC device, and plug it into your computer/notebook/SD Card adapter.

The directions for rooting are 'okay' but you need to be well rested before you do it, so that you are thinking clearly and not skipping directions. Read through all the directions at least once before beginning. Here are a couple things that I would have included in the directions on the rooting webpage linked above:

- Download and install "Winimage" before you get started. This should put (2) icons on your desktop, you'll be using the one with (administrator) in it.
- Under the "let's get started" step 3, Startup Winimage (administrator), pulldown "disk" menu, "restore virtual hard disk image on physical drive." Select your SD card in the list (it's likely the only thing in the list), then browse to your unzipped rooting image file, select it and go.
- Under the "let's get started" step 5, plugging in the USB cable - after plugging it in, this takes a while, and your NC will probably NOT reboot right away as the directions imply (the screen will stay black for quite a while). Just sit and wait at the black screen until the NC (finally) reboots itself and you can continue with the directions.
- After step 17, tap soft Nook button on-screen (looks like an up arrow with half moon around the bottom), then:
Settings -> Device Info -> SD Card -> Unmount SD card -> Format SD Card

Note, if you don't do the last step, and you leave the imaged SD card in the NC, every time you reboot the NC, it will attempt to re-run the rooting procedure (undesirable).

[MusingCoyote]

The problem with the USB issue is that it seems to be either intermittent, or it's getting worse. The first time I plugged it in, it would not work until I turned off the nook, and plugged it in while powered down, and unlocked it. A few times after that, I noticed my trackball stopped working after ejecting the Nook. I disabled/enabled the drivers that malfunctioned, and they worked perfectly fine. Just now, however, I accidentally unplugged my nook without ejecting, resulting in my laptop flashing a blue screen at me, then rebooting. it repeated again, when I attempted to launch firefox after it finished booting, and I believe once more, for no discernible reason(though I think it might have had something to do with ejecting the 2gb microSD card in my media slot, as I've removed it and have yet to crash again)

The point that I lost in all that rambling is, that I'm not sure if the issue not showing up on another computer would be because there's an issue with my laptop, or because the issue is intermittent, and just not cooperating right then.

Another thing that's beginning to concern me is, now that I've done a little more research, and decided to attempt rooting, I wanted to update to 1.0.1 before trying, and despite following the directions on the Nook Color support page at barnesandnoble.com, I've yet to manage to make it update.

[KryptoNyte]

MC, I can't say for sure, but it really sounds like you have some USB problems with your computer. If you did choose to root, I would seriously recommend doing it with a different computer, at least until your computer's USB issue is resolved.

I still think it would be beneficial to find at least 2 more computers and play around with the USB issue, to ensure that you've isolated the problem to your own computer. I'm not sure what your time window is on returning the Nook Color, but it would be important to isolate this issue soon.

[KryptoNyte]

Regarding the Barnes and Noble update, I would also recommend trying that update from a different computer. In order to eliminate confusion, remove the SD card from the Nook. Then plug the Nook into the computer and copy that ZIP file directly onto the NookColor drive that appears, into the root of the device, not into any directory that appears in the list.

[KryptoNyte]

If the step above this one fails again, post back here. We may need to try resetting the nook color completely and starting everything from scratch with a reliable computer.

[MusingCoyote]

I'm not sure when it was purchased, as it was a Christmas gift, but I get the feeling I'm still well within the return period.
Unfortunately, I don't have access to more than the one laptop, aside from a very unreliable XP desktop that may or may not have hardware issues of its own(it BSoDs at random, unpredictable, and inconvenient times. I've no idea how it's still running. It's not mine, thank god, but I'm usually the one that has to look at it.)

I don't suppose you have any advice for how to resolve the USB issue itself, if it does happen to be the computer, and not the Nook? All I've done so far is uninstall/reinstall the driver that had been disabling itself before.


EDIT:
I'll try the XP, but I don't hold much hope for it working

[KryptoNyte]

Please don't use either of those machines to perform the Nook Color rooting process. Fixing your BSOD's ... I would really want the machine to do that, and that's not feasible, and of course there's the stack of relatives/friends devices sitting here waiting for repairs ...

[MusingCoyote]

seems a good thing that the BSoD comp is in use at the moment then. there are so many issues with everything here, from my personal computer to the internet I'm using at the moment(glitchy, twitchy, horrible budget netzero, of all things. Alas, I'm not the one who pays the internet bill), I'm beginning to lean further and further towards waiting for the promised update in january, and seeing if the apps I need will come out in the nook marketplace.

I do find it odd that, if my USB problems are from my computer, that they started immediately after using the Nook. could a faulty nook have caused the problem?

[KryptoNyte]

Yes, MC. It's possible that a defective Nook Color could cause strange issues with your computer. I would lean a bit more towards the computer, on a wild guess.

[MusingCoyote]

My USB drivers don't seem to be causing any trouble now, and after I did a factory reset on my nook and redownloaded the update, it updated perfectly.

One thing that worried me is that it wouldn't do a hard reset. I tried that first, and after it didn't work for the third time, I went through settings->device info->erase and deregister. Should I be worried about that, if I ever decide to root the device, or am I just being overcautious?

Edit:
of course, I prove myself wrong five minutes after posting this....managed to get it to try and hard reset after all

[KryptoNyte]

Were you able to perform both of the resetting steps, MC? The first step being Re-image NC with the 8 reboot interuptions, and the second step to perform factory reset to clear data?

http://www.nookdevs.com/Flash_back_to_clean_stock_ROM

[MusingCoyote]

Yes, I did manage both resetting steps

I also was probably completely rash, and went ahead and tried rooting. It went flawlessly!

Thank you so much for your help!