Touch Bricked Kobo Touch - no internal SD card (flash memory chip instead)

[bher]

Hi everyone,

I have been reading on this forum for a few days now.

I have found a lot of information but so far nothing fitted exactly my need.

Description of the issue

I own a Kobo Touch, bought in early 2012. Recently I have tried to install Android in dualboot, as explained on this thread . Unfortunately, during the last step (the one consisting in dezipping "dualboot-android-******.zip" and rebooting), my Kobo got bricked. Two useful information about this step:
- I had to replace the "/etc" folder from the previous step by the one contained in the dualboot-android-******.zip archive;
- the external SD card was not in the Touch when it rebooted (I guess that this last could be a piece of the issue since I saw, too late, that the backup was supposed to go on the external card).

As a consequence my Kobo is bricked, showing the "restarting" screen. I have tried some things:
- switch on: blue LED, nothing happens;
- when switched off, power button + home button : flashing blue LED, ntohing happens, even after 15 mins;
- when switched on, home button + impulse on the reset button : flashing red/orange LED, nothing happens.

In every case, the device is not recognized by the computer, whether under Debian Wheezy or under Windows 7 + Kobo Desktop.

Opening the device showed that I have no removable internal SD card, but a flash memory chip instead, so I can not follow the recovery steps using such an internal SD card.


Toward further investigation and tries

I have thought of a first potential solution, consisting in writing a Kobo Touch image on the external SD card, adn see if I can have progress. As soon as I can have access to the internal memory from the computer I guess that I can write an image of the Kobo Touch.

So far I do not have such an image, would someone be so kind as to send me such an image please?

Beside, if you have any feed back or suggestions on such an issue, I would be glad to read about it



for your reading!

Cheers,

[Anak]

I'm sure the device is permanently bricked.
I've been there.

[davidfor]

Unless you managed to get the device to the point were it would boot from the external SD card, I doubt you can fix this. The device is trying to boot from the internal memory. And as that has been messed up, it is unlikely that anything will fix it. This is not my area of expertise, so someone might know better. But, no-one has mentioned anything different in my time here.

[bher]

Well, thank you for your feedback. I did fear that it was over for good, but then I know I should move on to another reader. I guess I'll start looking for it soon.

Thanks again, and have a good day!

[tshering]

Maybe you can try to go this road:

Originally Posted by hawhill

There'll always be the serial interface, and if you're very dedicated, you might be able to interface the eMMC chip...

[bher]

I will give it a try. It seems I dont have much to lose but my time.

I don't have any idea about how to proceed though, so I should make some internet research first. I don't know yet which part I should connect how and with what.

If I can manage to anything I will let you know.

Thanks again.

Edit: an easy way might also be to find a device with a broken wcreen and get the working board from it

[mertonv]

I'm in the same situation.
Just bought mine new and tried to do the mod and got stuck on the restarting screen.

If you find any solution let me know.
Godspeed!