Kobo to Kobo: Transfering Hacks Doubts

[RandomBoy]

Hi everyone,

Can you please clear some fog I have regarding Kobo to Kobo transfers?


1) Can I swap the internal uSD card of two different devices, and so transfer my sideloaded books and highlights into a new device? I did this successfully already with two Kobo GLOs... but would this work between different models, too? Specifically, will I be able to instal the uSD of a Kobo Glo into the slot of a Glo HD, or Clara HD, and see my old device's book and highlights into the new one?

2) Should I prefer to not physically swap the cards, could I instead, use the USB image tool, in order to be able to do the following:

- Backup old Kobo Glo books, highlights and stats
- Flash all Kobo Glo books, highlights and stats into Kobo Clara HD uSD

3) Should I want to bake my Kobo Glo's books & highlights into a Kobo Libra HD (AFAIK Libra does NOT have a uSD), will this solution work? 4) And would it work with the Elipsa, too?


I am shopping around for a new(ish) ereader, and ease of transfer may play a role.

I have read and advanced searched as much as I could, but sorry if this has already been mentioned before.

New user here, so thank you so much for having me... reading so many posts have helped me so much already

[RandomBoy]

UPDATE 1:

I have experimented a bit more with my two Kobo GLOs.

I have plugged them both simultaneously in the PC via USB cable, and then dragged and drop the full content of one ereader into the other (user data partition). When asked if I wanted to replace the files with the same name, I pressed "Yes".
The result was that I was able to transfer all the books and annotations. Initially the reading stats and settings were fully transferred too... but, after a few seconds, the Kobo showed a critical error message, asked me to sign out, and then it restarted. After a forced re-initialization (choose language, sign in, etc.), the Kobo Glo has kept all the books and annotations, but the stats and settings were lost.
Well at least I successfully transferred the annotations from one ereader to another.

UPDATE 2:

In the meantime, I ordered a Clara HD. When it arrives, does anyone knows if I can repeat the process above and, therefore, transfer the books and annotations from the Kobo Glo, without too much messing around?

Is there any way to transfer the reading stats, too? Or at least the "My Words" section?

[davidfor]

No, you cannot swap the SD cards between different models. The SD card has the kernel and uboot image. These are specific to the device. That also means that an image of the SD card won't work. And the method you link to won't work for exactly the same reason. After all, it is just a different way of producing the image. And even if you have an image, I do not know of a way to restore one to the Libra H2O, Elipsa or any other device that does not have an internal SD card.

This is a topic that has been discussed a few times. People have transferred the books and the database, or parts of the database from one device to another. I have made suggestions about what I thought was needed to be done, and some people have stated what they actually did. Those discussions should be findable. But, it is done by copying files, not by using images.

[RandomBoy]

Originally Posted by davidfor

No, you cannot swap the SD cards between different models. The SD card has the kernel and uboot image. These are specific to the device. That also means that an image of the SD card won't work. And the method you link to won't work for exactly the same reason. After all, it is just a different way of producing the image. And even if you have an image, I do not know of a way to restore one to the Libra H2O, Elipsa or any other device that does not have an internal SD card.

This is a topic that has been discussed a few times. People have transferred the books and the database, or parts of the database from one device to another. I have made suggestions about what I thought was needed to be done, and some people have stated what they actually did. Those discussions should be findable. But, it is done by copying files, not by using images.

Hey David, thank you so much for the clarification. That clears up a lot of fog already, actually. The only thing for me, at this point, would be understanding how to correctly transfer those files, and what can be transferred and what, instead, cannot.

Am I right to assume that only books and annotations can be transferred, but settings, read stats and MyWords cannot?

I did spend a considerable amount of time looking for this information, and oddly enough, although I am sure the subject has been discussed other times before, I could not find anything that could help me. Internet is becoming a very crowded place, I suppose...

[davidfor]

You can start with https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=3934756. That gives a high-level description of what is needed. It covers everything, but, doesn't go into the details of the steps needed. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=4037059 has some slightly different details.

If you can copy the database over successfully, you will get everything. The database contains the book details, the status and stats, the annotations/bookmarks and the MyWords.

[RandomBoy]

Originally Posted by davidfor

You can start with https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=3934756. That gives a high-level description of what is needed. It covers everything, but, doesn't go into the details of the steps needed. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=4037059 has some slightly different details.

If you can copy the database over successfully, you will get everything. The database contains the book details, the status and stats, the annotations/bookmarks and the MyWords.

Thank you so much for this. Much appreciated!
Because of not being able to find any source with step-by-step directions about how to do this, I feel a bit intimidated about it (for now). I will postpone this process to a later time.
But I may, eventually, ask a few more questions in the future, when I commit to put some time in trial and errors.

For now, thank you so much David for this and the many posts/plugins of yours I have found around in all these days. Kobo is a new world for me... and a very confusing one initially.