Touch N905 Demo Unit shocked back to life?!

[Timpanogos Slim]

Having already acquired the knowledge that the N905 (no B or C) has no internal sd card, I decided to take a gamble on that guy who sells demo unit Kobo Touch on ebay.

$20 can't be that bad, right? and there's probably a serial port, and i can figure out the serial port and be the hero who figures out how this works.

Well, the spots on the board that looked like they might be surface mount pads for the serial ports that are there on later revisions? Those are just, pads. There's no serial port there. There's no voltage either. They may do something, but they don't appear to.

Eventually I got out a usb to ttl serial, taped the ground lead to a ground pad, and probed around the test points with the rx lead. I did find a test point that at 115200 is pulsing at a rate that looks like the number six over and over but it's probably just a clock, and just coincidence.

And then i turned it off by holding the slide switch until the screen went dark.

And then i held down the 'home' button and held the slide switch out.

And then it displayed the "restoring to factory defaults" screen.

And then it booted up and connected to usb on my laptop as a mass storage device.

It now appears to be a completely normal N905.

It's possible that my frustrated probing corrupted a flash image and triggered a reload. This is generally the most foolish way to restore firmware but people do it on routers and settop boxes and the like. It's a time-honored, really stupid way of reviving electronics.

Or maybe it turns out that these demo units will re-flash themselves if you hold down home and the slide switch while turning them on.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Timpanogos Slim

Having already acquired the knowledge that the N905 (no B or C) has no internal sd card, I decided to take a gamble on that guy who sells demo unit Kobo Touch on ebay.

$20 can't be that bad, right? and there's probably a serial port, and i can figure out the serial port and be the hero who figures out how this works.

Well, the spots on the board that looked like they might be surface mount pads for the serial ports that are there on later revisions? Those are just, pads. There's no serial port there. There's no voltage either. They may do something, but they don't appear to.

Eventually I got out a usb to ttl serial, taped the ground lead to a ground pad, and probed around the test points with the rx lead. I did find a test point that at 115200 is pulsing at a rate that looks like the number six over and over but it's probably just a clock, and just coincidence.

And then i turned it off by holding the slide switch until the screen went dark.

And then i held down the 'home' button and held the slide switch out.

And then it displayed the "restoring to factory defaults" screen.

And then it booted up and connected to usb on my laptop as a mass storage device.

It now appears to be a completely normal N905.

It's possible that my frustrated probing corrupted a flash image and triggered a reload. This is generally the most foolish way to restore firmware but people do it on routers and settop boxes and the like. It's a time-honored, really stupid way of reviving electronics.

Or maybe it turns out that these demo units will re-flash themselves if you hold down home and the slide switch while turning them on.

Sounds as if you triggered the factory restore process.

Regards,
David

[Timpanogos Slim]

Clearly.

What's unclear was whether it was the buttons or the fiddling around with a probe.

This thread had me under the impression that they don't factory restore:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=212231

[Lucas Malor]

It will be clear if you redo the process without using the probe

[Timpanogos Slim]

Originally Posted by Lucas Malor

It will be clear if you redo the process without using the probe

After discovering that i don't really care for the start menu and that it was failing to start koreader, yeah i've done a factory reset a couple more times.

I'm pretty sure i was just holding the slide switch and home button the first time. that doesn't do anything now. the official method, including the reset button on the back, does.

Given what a used kobo touch goes for on ebay, I wonder if this is a worthwhile gamble for others?

I am going to use it to experiment with stuff before trying it on my Glo. I'll probably end up selling it because it is visibly slower than the Glo.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Timpanogos Slim

After discovering that i don't really care for the start menu and that it was failing to start koreader, yeah i've done a factory reset a couple more times.

I'm pretty sure i was just holding the slide switch and home button the first time. that doesn't do anything now. the official method, including the reset button on the back, does.

The "official" method of doing a factory reset on the Touch is to use the "Factory reset" button in the settings. When that can't be reached, the method is to make sure the device is off, hold the home button down and turn it on. The main reason for that not working is that the device was not actually off. If it still doesn't, then something is broken.

As to demo units, I am pretty sure they are just standard devices. There is a command you can put into the search field that turns demo mode on and off. And the config file has some entries for demo mode. They are there so the device will restart in demo mode. Removing them, will turn it back to a "normal" device.