Database Develop

Bricked Captivate Assistance

Hi team. I've searched the forums for answers and even though I've read a thousand excellent posts, none (of course) fit my situation specifically. I'll try to be as brief as I can.
My AT&T-branded, Chinese imported Captivate was only three weeks old when I first soft-bricked it trying to do an update using Kies (thanks Samsung!) and then because it would only go into download mode, I tried using Odin to reflash back to where I was. The flash didn't take and I was left with nothing; no charging icon, no computer recognition (Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit using the generic Samsung Android phone drivers downloaded from somewhere on XDA) and no boot/download mode; in other words, hard-bricked and nothing working.
I bought myself a riffbox and spent a long time reading various forum posts about using it; I own a computer repair company and have flashed a million motherboard, modem, router and other firmwares over the past 15 years and have even done a Samsung S2 and a Galaxy Pad in the last week so am reasonably comfortable with the process, even though I'm not hugely experiences yet with the riffbox.
Anyway, I imported and soldered the recommended panasonic socket to the JTAG point and made myself some PCB adapters to fit and break out the Riffbox cables. That's all done and dusted and today I used the Riffbox on my Captivate for the first time, apparently detecting the 'dead body' and flashing the ROM successfully (the box and software would soon tell me if something wasn't right). While I hoped it would, I didn't expect my phone to boot straight away, but did expect it to go into download mode, as suggested in the JTAG literature with the Riffbox. This is where it all gets bent out of shape.
I always get into download mode with my Captivate by dropping the battery and then replugging with the Vol + and - buttons held. I have tried all methodfs I can find on XDA but all either don't work or do the same thing, that is, my phone enters download mode for about ten seconds, then drops out again. During that time, all USB devices 'hang' while the computer tries to fathom what the hell is connected there and Andy just holds his shovel and laughs at me before disappearing once again into the inky blackness of a dead screen. The device manager shows an unknown device detected before letting it go again and mouse and keyboard control resumes. Weird. I thought it might be a flat battery but I've charged that so it has plenty of juice. When plugged via USB, there is 4 volts at the battery terminals (measured with the battery out) so it would charge when plugged in (wall wart or USB cable) even though no icon shows.
Like any good tech I went back and reflashed using both the recommended ROM and 'last resort' option in the Riffbox (Clone Gremlin Zone flash) and the phone still does the same thing; enters download mode then off. I made up a USB dongle/jig using exactly 301 kilohms of resistance (measured digitally) across pins 4 and 5 and followed the various videos/explanations to get into download mode that way but this does not work on my phone, leading me to think something else is broken.
Bottom line is that it seems the phone doesn't have to be connected via USB to enter download mode but if Windows cannot load the phone, then I cannot use Odin or Heimdall to reflash it. I don't think it is drivers because it worked OK before the brick (well, not perfectly but it did connect and I had USB drive support etc.) and besides, I have tried reinstalling drivers to no avail. Can anyone suggest anything I can try (shipping it to some guy in the USA is not the answer I'm going for here so please don't waste your time or mine). As far as I can see, I have done everything the people here suggest and the JTAG/Riffbox instructions to the letter but it just does not want to happen. I'd rather not lose the phone and since I eventually want to offer this sort of service in my business, I want to get it to work on my own phone for my own pride and knowledge.
Cheers from Christchurch New Zealand.

Follow up.
davenz said:
Hi team. I've searched the forums for answers and even though I've read a thousand excellent posts, none (of course) fit my situation specifically. I'll try to be as brief as I can.
My AT&T-branded, Chinese imported Captivate was only three weeks old when I first soft-bricked it trying to do an update using Kies (thanks Samsung!) and then because it would only go into download mode, I tried using Odin to reflash back to where I was. The flash didn't take and I was left with nothing; no charging icon, no computer recognition (Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit using the generic Samsung Android phone drivers downloaded from somewhere on XDA) and no boot/download mode; in other words, hard-bricked and nothing working.
I bought myself a riffbox and spent a long time reading various forum posts about using it; I own a computer repair company and have flashed a million motherboard, modem, router and other firmwares over the past 15 years and have even done a Samsung S2 and a Galaxy Pad in the last week so am reasonably comfortable with the process, even though I'm not hugely experiences yet with the riffbox.
Anyway, I imported and soldered the recommended panasonic socket to the JTAG point and made myself some PCB adapters to fit and break out the Riffbox cables. That's all done and dusted and today I used the Riffbox on my Captivate for the first time, apparently detecting the 'dead body' and flashing the ROM successfully (the box and software would soon tell me if something wasn't right). While I hoped it would, I didn't expect my phone to boot straight away, but did expect it to go into download mode, as suggested in the JTAG literature with the Riffbox. This is where it all gets bent out of shape.
I always get into download mode with my Captivate by dropping the battery and then replugging with the Vol + and - buttons held. I have tried all methodfs I can find on XDA but all either don't work or do the same thing, that is, my phone enters download mode for about ten seconds, then drops out again. During that time, all USB devices 'hang' while the computer tries to fathom what the hell is connected there and Andy just holds his shovel and laughs at me before disappearing once again into the inky blackness of a dead screen. The device manager shows an unknown device detected before letting it go again and mouse and keyboard control resumes. Weird. I thought it might be a flat battery but I've charged that so it has plenty of juice. When plugged via USB, there is 4 volts at the battery terminals (measured with the battery out) so it would charge when plugged in (wall wart or USB cable) even though no icon shows.
Like any good tech I went back and reflashed using both the recommended ROM and 'last resort' option in the Riffbox (Clone Gremlin Zone flash) and the phone still does the same thing; enters download mode then off. I made up a USB dongle/jig using exactly 301 kilohms of resistance (measured digitally) across pins 4 and 5 and followed the various videos/explanations to get into download mode that way but this does not work on my phone, leading me to think something else is broken.
Bottom line is that it seems the phone doesn't have to be connected via USB to enter download mode but if Windows cannot load the phone, then I cannot use Odin or Heimdall to reflash it. I don't think it is drivers because it worked OK before the brick (well, not perfectly but it did connect and I had USB drive support etc.) and besides, I have tried reinstalling drivers to no avail. Can anyone suggest anything I can try (shipping it to some guy in the USA is not the answer I'm going for here so please don't waste your time or mine). As far as I can see, I have done everything the people here suggest and the JTAG/Riffbox instructions to the letter but it just does not want to happen. I'd rather not lose the phone and since I eventually want to offer this sort of service in my business, I want to get it to work on my own phone for my own pride and knowledge.
Cheers from Christchurch New Zealand.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since none of the gurus here bothered to respond I'll do it myself in case someone else finds the same issue.
Turns out the battery was faulty; I replaced it and succeeded in getting the phone into download mode with both the jig and the usual methods. Then the computer would not recognize the phone, the dreaded 'unknown device' in the device manager. I was using the factory cable that came with the phone but tried a third-party one I had for a Chicom HTC copy I had lying around and this allowed the phone to be recognized by Windows (go figure). I used Odin to unbrick/reflash and it is all go now, interestingly both cables now work for the phone within Windows so it is always worth trying something even though it makes no real sense to do so.

Darn, that is exactly what I was going to say to do!
Next time, try a rotating disc nebulizer, which you can redesign with respect to the principle parameters that determine its analytical performance. The flow pattern of the aerosols you will attain can be optimized by altering the shape of the inner chamber for optimum aerodynamic characteristics. Furthermore, the optimum angle of impact needs to be established using particle size distribution and mass transport efficiency as criteria. Any analytical characteristics you determine will be through monitoring the emission signal from an aqueous standard. The accuracy has to be assessed by using reference steel and iridium samples.
It is easy to construct, and the fundamental component is a rotating disc onto which a liquid sample is introduced. It should require no additional spray chamber and be easy to operate effectively. Once in operation it should produce aerosols with mean droplet diameters of approximately 0.50 µm.
You may then utilize inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry to determine the defect.:good:

^
ROFLMAO !!!!
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium

Rotating Disc Nebulizer
-SGA- said:
Darn, that is exactly what I was going to say to do!
Next time, try a rotating disc nebulizer, which you can redesign with respect to the principle parameters that determine its analytical performance. The flow pattern of the aerosols you will attain can be optimized by altering the shape of the inner chamber for optimum aerodynamic characteristics. Furthermore, the optimum angle of impact needs to be established using particle size distribution and mass transport efficiency as criteria. Any analytical characteristics you determine will be through monitoring the emission signal from an aqueous standard. The accuracy has to be assessed by using reference steel and iridium samples.
It is easy to construct, and the fundamental component is a rotating disc onto which a liquid sample is introduced. It should require no additional spray chamber and be easy to operate effectively. Once in operation it should produce aerosols with mean droplet diameters of approximately 0.50 µm.
You may then utilize inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry to determine the defect.:good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is excellent advice and ordinarily I would agree 110%, however I have found that the later model Rotating Disc Nebulisers have an inherent fault in the flange valve regulator, which in turn affects the lead mercury ratio and results in even harder bricking of susceptible devices. If, however, you feather an older nebulizer with the updated underhead/overhang mod then even the nastiest conflibulator inversion is easily bypassed. Just for information's sake...

davenz said:
This is excellent advice and ordinarily I would agree 110%, however I have found that the later model Rotating Disc Nebulisers have an inherent fault in the flange valve regulator, which in turn affects the lead mercury ratio and results in even harder bricking of susceptible devices. If, however, you feather an older nebulizer with the updated underhead/overhang mod then even the nastiest conflibulator inversion is easily bypassed. Just for information's sake...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OMG, that was some seriously original stuff! Anyone try Googling "conflibulator inversion"? This is the only result, lol!
Glad to hear your flashing worked out, I think the process you followed is a lot more in depth than many of us would ever undertake...

-SGA- said:
OMG, that was some seriously original stuff! Anyone try Googling "conflibulator inversion"? This is the only result, lol!
Glad to hear your flashing worked out, I think the process you followed is a lot more in depth than many of us would ever undertake...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I wasn't about to throw away 350 bucks (our money, which is worth about three chickens and a bag of salt in anyone else's currency) and since I pride myself in being able to fix anything, the challenge was set in motion when I discovered (via this excellent resource) that the Captivate was a) hard to brick (I found it pretty easy to be honest) and b) the hardest to unbrick.One poster claimed that if you can unbrick a Captivate you can unbrick anything, so I had to give it a go. After all, what did I have to lose?
As I mentioned, I intend to diversify my computer repair business into mobile gadget repairs anyway and I can think of nothing more noble than unbricking phones. I learned an incredible amount on the way through the whole process and while just having the tools doesn't make me an expert, I'm happy to work my way toward that goal and if I help others on the way, well, it's a win/win.
Thanks for the entertaining posts and cheers from Christchurch, New Zealand.

I sure hope you tried locating the flux capacitor before going through all that work. Could have saved you from having to go through the whole "Seismic Declan Brown Eyed Goose" process.

Glad to hear you are de-worse-ifying your biz.
You should add the left-handed skyhook-bipolar-transmogifier-probe to your tools. I am told its use dramatically improves GPS performance, and provides immediate position locks to some position, however distant from where you thought you were.
-written whilst sipping high temperature psychoactive botanical filtrate in my ceramic gravitational containment vessel with plalangeal bracket (aka coffee in my mug).
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using xda app-developers app

Thanks
wwcjr91 said:
I sure hope you tried locating the flux capacitor before going through all that work. Could have saved you from having to go through the whole "Seismic Declan Brown Eyed Goose" process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now you tell me! The entire Seismic Declan Brown Eyed Goose scenario had me stumped there for a while but after referencing 'Nocturnal Urinary Releases and other Stories', the famous Declan-decoding text by I. P. Nightly, a liberal application of lubricating gel in all the right places had the whole thing well in hand...
And as for the left-handed skyhook-bipolar-transmogifier-probe, that's again where I went wrong with a newbie mistake. Sadly I ordered the right-handed skyhook-bipolar-transmogifier-probe and of course it didn't moglify the selindicular quadronizer at all. In fact, it broke it off at the chalisticator and left me up the paddle without a creek, so to speak. Nevertheless, a little old-fashioned luck and a tap with the old thorificating polookanizer soon had things back on track.
Now all I need is another Speckled Jim for the halitosinifer (do you REALLY want to know?) and all will be well in my world (which is not like other worlds if posts on XDA are anything to go by...)
Thanks all for your excellent input, it has been a journey through the looking glass!

well i really liked the "brilliantly" thought of posts about the legendary tools mentioned... hehe
i was really looking forward to more comments to lighten up the mood
pls keep posting
3 cheers
btw i am also stuck at dead hard brick on my cappy
regards

alot of youtube videos provide help on unbricking

...'last resort' option in the Riffbox (Clone Gremlin Zone flash)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please.
Someone know what Gremlin Zone exactly is?
Location in OneNAND ? Or somewhere else?
Maybe adresses or dump of Gremlin Zone would be nice.
Thanx in advance.
Best Regards

adfree said:
Please.
Someone know what Gremlin Zone exactly is?
Location in OneNAND ? Or somewhere else?
Maybe adresses or dump of Gremlin Zone would be nice.
Thanx in advance.
Best Regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the person to ask would be AdamOutler. You're asking for some deep knowledge in general

Very bricked kindle fire hd

Hi all noob on this forum.. A friend had his kindle fire hd replaced by Amazon. He gav m the on that was replaced but it is absolutely dead. I have a factory cable from a motorola which i thought may help. but there is absolutely no reponse from the kindle. i assume that it is beyond the pale. griend said it had been in demo mode. he used the kfu, got it into fastboot but he had not, read the warnings on here. and lo and behold th kfhd is demised. i there any point holding on to it or shall i just ebay it for spares?
thanks for any comments . (constructive more so) but laughter is an acknowledged reponse.
omniac

Well took the back off just to have a look somebody obviously been in before. The connector for the red and black cables was broken. The copper foil had obviously been disturbed. Was going to try the usb short trick but does not look like the thumbnail in the picture so not sure which bit to short. Will keep searching to see if there is an answer somewhere.
omniac

Did you reconnect the red and black cable? If not try reconnecting the wire and then try your fastboot cable if you get the fast boot screen then you can just go to the thread about the system image restore tool and follow the instructions. I brick my kondle hd and got it back with the tool. I only had one problem doing this i made my own cable and windows didnt recognize my device. So i unplug the fastboot cable while still in fast boot and just conected my kindle usb cable and re setup drivers. Then i just followed the instructions for the restore tool
Sent from my KFTT using xda app-developers app

Reconnected cables, still no life from the little beast. Does get warm just above the charging port on the back of the kindle.

[WIP][HOW TO][UNBRICK][HARD-BRICK][KF2]Bringing your KF2 back from the dead

This guide is a work in progress.
Please be patient as I work on completing this guide, as I work full time and am a full time student.
You can find the original discussion thread for this topic here!
DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any damage to yourself, your Kindle, or other property incurred by following any or all parts of this guide. Proceed at your own risk.
WARNING: Do not attempt to follow this guide unless you are fairly familiar with soldering and Linux commands. Serious harm to yourself, your Kindle, and/or your computer can result if you are not careful.
Q. What devices will this work on?
A. This how-to works for the Kindle Fire 2 only. (There are other methods of restoring a bricked original Kindle Fire; refer to the FAQ for that device)
Q. Why won't this work for KFHD7"/8.9"?
A. The motherboard designs for the KFHDs are different. That means that the entire process of finding all the solder points for those motherboards (including desoldering the e-MMC) has to be repeated before the same method for fixing hard-bricks on them can be used. (Note: If you have a hard-bricked or otherwise broken KFHD7"/8.9" that you'd be willing to donate for this endeavor, please PM me)
Q. Under what circumstance does will this guide help?
A. This guide is intended to restore the KF2 that was previously thought to be beyond restoring, or hard-bricked, as a result of flashing the incorrect image to your ROM. This means a KF2 that does not display anything on the screen and does not light up the power LED when the power button is pressed (i.e. it appears dead even after charging). If your KF2 still shows signs of life but is not working, please try one of the other methods of repairing it. Might I suggest Q16-23 of the FAQ?
Q. Is there any way to do this without all the soldering?
A. At this time, no; however, I am in the process of developing a device to do this that does not require soldering.
Q. I don't feel comfortable doing this myself. Can I have you fix it for me?
A. Send me a PM and we'll work out the details.
Required materials:
Hard-bricked Kindle Fire 2
USB SD card reader (one with only one slot, NOT the multi-card readers)*
30 AWG wire (I found mine at Radioshack)
solder (the smaller the diameter, the better)
soldering iron (pencil iron will work, but soldering station is better)
plastic opening tools
a small Phillips screwdriver (mine came with my plastic opening tool kit)
a computer with Linux (a live CD of a distro should theoretically work, but I used an installed copy of Ubuntu 13.04)
*For cheap card readers near me (literally three blocks up the road), I found this one from Microcenter and this one from Tigerdirect. Go with whatever is cheapest for you.​
Suggested materials:
Helping hands tool
A good light source
Magnifying glass/magnifying visor (I used a x7 magnifying glass with built-in light)
Desoldering pump/wick (in case you mess something up, need to desolder the SD card reader, or want to clean up your board after you're done)
Lots of patience​

Preparing the motherboard
Warning: Take care to protect sensitive electrical components (like the ones found on your KF2) from ESD.
1. Remove the motherboard from the Kindle. If you need directions on how to do that, please refer to ifixit (stop at step 8). Note: You do not need to remove the battery from the case.
2. Take a moment and familiarize yourself with the layout of the motherboard.(Solder points are marked. Keep these images handy for reference)
Front:
(Click for larger image)
This is just an FYI (not required to do this): When you first take out the motherboard, the e-MMC will be covered by a piece of grey foam. Underneath that is a sticker that covers the chip information.​
Back:
(Click for larger image)
Note: For CMD and DAT1, you will be soldering to the marked leads of the SMD components. All other soldering will be to the marked copper pads.​3. Place it to the side in a safe location

Preparing the SD card reader
There are a few different variations when it comes to SD card readers. In addition to through-hole vs. SMD, there may be variation in the location of the card-detect switch pins. All other pins (DAT0-3, Vcc, GND, CMD, and CLK) will always have the same location relative to each other.
Examples:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
SMD with card detect switch at the top
Through-hole with card detect switch in the middle (Front) (card connector removed)
Through-hole with card detect switch in the middle (Back)​
1. Remove your reader from the package.
It should look something like this:
2. Remove the plastic housing and any metal shielding from the SD card connector.
You're left with this:
3.There are two ways to proceed from here: (a) For through-hole, use the pads (b)For through-hole or SMD, solder directly to the connector pins.
4. (a) Carefully desolder all the pins from the card connector. (b) Skip this step.
5. Cut your wire. You will need 10 pieces. 9 of them need to be long enough to get from the MB to the card reader (I went with about 6-8 inches) with 6 of them the same length (for DAT0-1, CMD, and CLK to minimize chance of signals arriving at different times). The last wire should be long enough to jump the card detect switch (CD_SW) to ground (GND).
6. Carefully strip about 0.5-1 cm of the insulation each end of all the wires.
7. (Refer to example images at beginning of post) Take your small wire and jump CD_SW to GND by (a) placing the wire through CD_SW and GND and soldering or (b) soldering one end of the wire to the CD_SW connector pin and the other to a GND connector pin.
8. (Refer to example images at beginning of post) Take your 6 wires of equal length and solder one each to DAT0-3, CMD, and CLK (a) through the hole or (b) to the card connector pins.
9. (Refer to example images at beginning of post) Take one of the remaining wires and solder it to GND by (a) or (b) as above.
10. (Refer to example images at beginning of post) Take your last two remaining wires and twist one end of the exposed wire together. Solder this end to Vcc by (a) or (b) as above. These will be used to connect to Vcc and VccQ on the motherboard.
11. Your finished product should look something like this (for a):
Front:
Back:

(Blank)

Connecting it all together
Soldering to the copper pads is tricky. The solder doesn't like to stick, and when it does, you have to be very careful not to move the wire until it cools. Also, if you have to attempt to solder the same pad more than once, lacquer tends to build up. Keep something handy (like tweezers) to scrape it off if it gets in the way
Reference photos:
Front:
(Click for larger image)
Back:
(Click for larger image)
Card reader:
1. Solder the wire from the card reader to the corresponding pads as marked in the images above. Using the helping hands tool to hold the board and the reader makes things much easier. It's probably easiest if you solder DAT0 on the front first, then turn the board over and with audio jack, etc. on the left, solder each spot from top to bottom, left to right. Note: Solder one Vcc wire from the card reader to one Vcc pad on the board and the other to VccQ.
Once finished, it should look like this:

Next Step?
Wanna try this with my bricked kf 2nd gen. But I need to research more on it first...
On what state will the tablet be when you plug in the finished product to the computer?
can you please put the next steps ?
Thanks!

What's next??
Hello there... I was reading your steps to repair my dead KF2 on your post... and I noticed you said on the requirements that we need a Linux PC, preferably with Ubuntu, to proceed... but There are no more steps after you show how to solder.
Can you tell me, please, What's next? What happens when I connect the logic board with the soldered wires to the SD adapter, to the linux PC? how do I revive it?
Please, help me... I want to give that Kindle as a gift to someone on my church who needs it, And I want to try to fix it!!
Thanks for your time and sharing your knowledge. God bless you.
-----
kurohyou said:
This guide is a work in progress.
Please be patient as I work on completing this guide, as I work full time and am a full time student.
You can find the original discussion thread for this topic here!
DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any damage to yourself, your Kindle, or other property incurred by following any or all parts of this guide. Proceed at your own risk.
WARNING: Do not attempt to follow this guide unless you are fairly familiar with soldering and Linux commands. Serious harm to yourself, your Kindle, and/or your computer can result if you are not careful.
Q. What devices will this work on?
A. This how-to works for the Kindle Fire 2 only. (There are other methods of restoring a bricked original Kindle Fire; refer to the FAQ for that device)
Q. Why won't this work for KFHD7"/8.9"?
A. The motherboard designs for the KFHDs are different. That means that the entire process of finding all the solder points for those motherboards (including desoldering the e-MMC) has to be repeated before the same method for fixing hard-bricks on them can be used. (Note: If you have a hard-bricked or otherwise broken KFHD7"/8.9" that you'd be willing to donate for this endeavor, please PM me)
Q. Under what circumstance does will this guide help?
A. This guide is intended to restore the KF2 that was previously thought to be beyond restoring, or hard-bricked, as a result of flashing the incorrect image to your ROM. This means a KF2 that does not display anything on the screen and does not light up the power LED when the power button is pressed (i.e. it appears dead even after charging). If your KF2 still shows signs of life but is not working, please try one of the other methods of repairing it. Might I suggest Q16-23 of the FAQ?
Q. Is there any way to do this without all the soldering?
A. At this time, no; however, I am in the process of developing a device to do this that does not require soldering.
Q. I don't feel comfortable doing this myself. Can I have you fix it for me?
A. Send me a PM and we'll work out the details.
Required materials:
Hard-bricked Kindle Fire 2
USB SD card reader (one with only one slot, NOT the multi-card readers)*
30 AWG wire (I found mine at Radioshack)
solder (the smaller the diameter, the better)
soldering iron (pencil iron will work, but soldering station is better)
plastic opening tools
a small Phillips screwdriver (mine came with my plastic opening tool kit)
a computer with Linux (a live CD of a distro should theoretically work, but I used an installed copy of Ubuntu 13.04)
*For cheap card readers near me (literally three blocks up the road), I found this one from Microcenter and this one from Tigerdirect. Go with whatever is cheapest for you.​
Suggested materials:
Helping hands tool
A good light source
Magnifying glass/magnifying visor (I used a x7 magnifying glass with built-in light)
Desoldering pump/wick (in case you mess something up, need to desolder the SD card reader, or want to clean up your board after you're done)
Lots of patience​
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Once you have a Linux PC up and running or even just a Ubuntu live is will do, download the boot loader for your kindle, I don't have links at the moment, but one place you can get it is download the latest official update for your device from Amazon's support section, I am pretty sure Linux should automatically recognize it as a zip file even though it ends in .bin, if not just changes the end to .zip. Extract the file called u-boot.bin to wherever you find convenient, for my convenience I will say extract to the home folder( the terminals default to that directory so it makes things simpler). Now plug in the USB adapter you have soldered to the kindle. If it mounts anything I suggest unmounting it just to be on the over protective side. You will now need to determine the device path that is given to the kindles emmc, easiest way is to check in gparted or disks, or by running the mount command from a terminal if you haven't yet unmounted the other partitions and know what you are looking for. Once it has been determined you should run a command similar to this in a terminal:
Code:
sudo dd bs=1 if=u-boot.bin of=/dev/sdb2
take note to replace sdb2 with the device name your PC assigned to the device, but remember to leave the 2 so it only flashes that to the second partition instead of over the entire emmc. Once you run this and it succeeds, you should eject the device or just shut the PC down, disconnect your wires and try powering on the kindle. @kurohyou did I leave anything important out? I will probably make this formatted better later on when I am actually on a PC.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app

Looks good to me. The semester is almost over and someone is sending me a KF2 to fix, so once it arrives, I'll go through and take screenshots of the process and finish up the guide. At that time, I'll ask the mods to clean up this topic (delete posts) so it flows well.

super！
but if you know how the AMAZON lab126 guys fix it you will know it‘s very easy
y.

Yes but they have signed files we don't have access to that are necessary for reflashing it with usbboot/aboot or w/e that utility is called.
Sent from my Amazon Kindle Fire HD running CM10.1 Tablet UI using xda-developers app

Has anyone managed to write up a walk through on exactly what to do once you've gotten the board soldered up and ready to go? I have Linux up and running, and the soldering shouldn't take more than 20 minutes, but I'm holding off on doing this until I know I can do the software side of things. I am a complete noob with linux, and don't want to make things worse by making a mistake. Part of me really wants to try this out but not knowing what to do after I'm wired up keeps me from trying this.

Some great news!
First off, a very big thank you to @kurohyou and @stunts513 for all their efforts, all their suggestions in all their posts helped me get to the end, thank you guys!
Right, here's my story, had a Kindle Fire 2 flashed with the wrong bootloader a few months back, forgot about the device till 2 days back when i came across the
original post by kurohyou, with the idea of getting direct access to the eMMC and flashing the bootloader, then followed up on his post with the how to's, decided to
give it a shot.
Started off with the soldering on the Kindle motherboard, it was a pain, but what helped in attaching the solder to the points was a good paste, i used solder paste on
the points, then dabbed a little solder with flux on the tip of the soldering iron and kept the tip on the point for a few seconds at a time, sometimes more than once,
once all the points were tinted, i tinted the ends of the cables i was going to use with the same solder with flux, the cables i used were from an old HDMI cable which
i stripped up, they were thin and flexible. For the SD card reader, i used one similar to kurohyou's, except i didn't have the points on the other side, so i soldered
the cables directly to the legs of the SD reader slot without removing the slot, also, i did not short ground and CD_SW, instead i just left a blank SD adapter in the
slot, which did the trick.
Now once everything was soldered on, i used the ubuntu-12.04.3-desktop-i386.iso to create a UBUNTU live CD and booted from that, once in UBUNTU attached the SD reader
and voila, eMMC detected! Now to get to the flashing of the bootloader, i read a numerous amount of posts suggesting to flash the u-boot.bin file from the original
Kindle firmware, and the suggested version was the 10.2.4, so i downloaded the firmware (in .bin format) from the amazon site, right clicked on the file, open with,
used Winrar, there extracted the u-boot.bin file. To flash the bootloader i used the dd command suggested by stunts513, which was:
sudo dd bs=1 if=u-boot.bin of=/dev/sdb2
The first time i ran that command, i had an input/output error, i ran the command another 3 or 4 times till it flashed successfully, i got an error message when
ejecting the SD, so shut down the machine, detached the SD reader and connected up the Kindle, no life, tried usb, fastboot and mains charger, no signs of life.
Disconnected everything and attached the SD reader again, now UBUNTU recognized the eMMC, but as 1 disk with no partitions! So thought ok, il reboot the system and try
again, tried all the different USB slots i had on the laptop, all giving the same result, so i left the SD reader out for a few minutes, while i figured out what to do
next, then when i re-attached it, it picked it up again with all the correct partitions, however, nothing was mounted, i read stunts513's suggestion of unmounting to
be safe, so i though that was fine, ran the dd command again and same thing, input/output error, tried a few times and it flashed successfully, again detached and
connected up the Kindle, no signs of life, didn't really know what to do next, decided to ponder on the Kindle folder i had on my drive, with the backups, there i found 'otter2-u-boot-prod-10.2.4' which was 227KB, the same size as u-boot.bin, thought lets give this file a go, again reconnected up till all the partitions were detected correctly and ran the dd command with otter2-u-boot-prod-10.2.4.bin, detached everything and connect the Kindle up, plugged in the USB and got an orange light!
A few people got the orange light without the kindle actually booting the OS, so never had my hopes up too high, let the kindle charge for a few mins and then it started up, stuck on the kindle logo boot loop, as i started reading the forum, i came across a post about the kindle boot loop, where stunts513 suggested flashing via fast boot, i attached the kindle to the fast boot cable and was waiting for the laptop to recognize the kindle, suddenly i get a blank screen, i left it like that for a few minutes then decided to press the power button, no response, i kept the power button pressed in till i saw the kindle logo again, took a few seconds but this time, it booted the OS! I don't know if the fast boot cable had anything to do with that, im sure stunts513 and kurohyou will be able to shed some more light on that.
My apologies for the long post, but im trying to put down as much detail as possible to help all the other guys with the bricked Kindle fire 2's, im also attaching the boot file i used.
Again, a big thank you to kurohyou and stunts513 for all their efforts!

Bit of an interesting one if anyone could try and shed some light onto it. Connect everything up as usual but with VccQ every time it is connected something must short and fries the SD card reader, without VccQ connected the light on the SD card adaptor flashes continually but it's not recognised by Ubuntu.

Thank you!
I just wanted to drop by and say a HUGE thank you to @kurohyou for starting this thread and for all who have contributed to it
BEFORE I CONTINUE, PLEASE BE MINDFUL THAT THE PARTITION NUMBER/DESIGNATION BEING SHOWN AND WRITTEN TO IN THIS THREAD, BY MYSELF AND OTHER PEOPLE, WILL NOT NECESSARILY BE THE SAME WHEN YOU CONNECT YOUR KINDLE eMMC TO YOUR SD CARD READER AND FLASH THE CORRECT BOOTLOADER, TO DE-BRICK IT. LINUX ASSIGNS DIFFERENT PARTITION NODES BASED ON VARIOUS CRITERIA, SO YOU MUST ALWAYS ENSURE YOU ARE "dd'ing" TO THE CORRECT PARTITION, OTHERWISE YOU COULD BE WRITING TO *ANY* DEVICE ON YOUR PC, POSSIBLY YOUR MULTIPLE TERABYTE FAMILY PHOTO ARCHIVE... ARGH! DO *ALWAYS* ENSURE YOU ARE WRITING TO A 256KB PARTITION - REFER TO MY PHOTOS, BELOW; THEY SHOW A PARTITION LISTING AND WHERE THE BOOTLOADER PARTITION IS, AND IN WHICH ORDER THE PARTITIONS ARE.
I bought a pristine, boxed *DEMO* Kindle (2? Gen 2? "Otter2" anyway the 7" one, 600x1024) from eBay for just £6.99, and when I tried to flash the bootloader with my fastboot cable, as soon as I rebooted... it DIED. Being a long time qualified electronics engineer, this kind of disassembley is all part of life for me, and doesn't phase me one iota, but the soldering of wires is a VERY precise and delicate operation - PROCEED VERY VERY SLOWLY, DOUBLE CHECK AND THEN AGAIN, ALL YOUR PIN DESIGNATIONS AND SOLDER JOINTS OR THERE'LL BE TEARS BEFORE BEDTIME!
Anyhow, I simply booted into 32 bit Ubuntu (I have a huge repository of ISOs to hand, so that was no big deal, and bash commands I can do in my sleep) so I flashed the bootloader to the relevant unmounted partition @mohibr attached to this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=49549083&postcount=13
... using "dd" command, et VOILA! it works! (I knew it would, this is hardly rocket science, but still an extremely joyful moment to behold, seeing my less-than-one-day-old KF revived!)
I'm rather too tired to expand thoroughly on all the details, but if anyone needs any help, let me know soon before this whole episode is lost and forgotten (you've no idea HOW much of this kind of thing I do weekly, to myriad devices).
Here's my witness photos - please feel free to add me to the testimonys of people who took their time and revived their KF(2? not sure that it's a "2", just that it's a later version using "otter2", whatever that pertains to.)
Photos---> https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/albums/72157660358184524
Thank you so much, and God bless you all and have a lovely Christmas
Matthew.

Vcc location on mobo?
Trying to find a Vcc point on the fire gen2 mobo. multimeter took a crap and im getting scary readings. anyone have a picture of location so i can short to ground. My gen2 is currently stuck at "boot, then blackscreen". its not a loop and windows doesnt recognize the device at all.
Any pictures of the location would be greatly appreciated. ciao.
On a side note, i apologize for reviving this thread. I accidentally flashed a zipped boot image to my kindle. its been sitting for a few weeks. just finally ordered a fastboot cable.

[Q] Headless Mobo data retrieval.

Hey guys bout to beat my head against a wall on this one.
A buddy of mine "tired" to replace his front glass on his Moto X and ended up destroying it. Apparently he cooked it pretty well with a hair dryer on high in the process of trying to the glass off and fried the LCD and digitizer and possibly more. Anyway he brought me over a bag of parts and asked if i could retrieve his data. He was running unrooted stock with a locked bootloader and I'm assuming debugging turned off but not sure.
So this is the part i start hitting my head against the wall. After reassembling it without the LCD/digitizer assembly pluged in, I pluged it in via USB and it installs it's self as a MOTOROLA PHONE, and seams to be using the USB INPUT and HID Compliant Vendor Defined Device drivers. I cant for the life of me get it to use the right drivers. I've installed Motorola's driver/device manager and run the Motorola driver installer but nothing is working.
Really don't know that much about the Moto X as I don't own one myself but i'd assume that it should install as a specific device and not a generic MOTOROLA PHONE as well as using MTP drivers instead of USB INPUT
Basically though, short of the driver issues, my main question is. Is there anyway of pulling data from a headless, bootloader locked, ADB disabled device? I personally don't think there is but just in case i thought i'd ask.
Would rather not buy a new LCD/Digitizer assembly for $70 if the main board got fried from the heat of the hairdryer, but might have to if there's no other way, at least then I could see what going on.
Have checked though the forms and didn't see any other similar topics on this, so if I missed it please link it.
Thanks ahead of time.
~Ninjaboy837

Ninjaboy837 said:
Hey guys bout to beat my head against a wall on this one.
A buddy of mine "tired" to replace his front glass on his Moto X and ended up destroying it. Apparently he cooked it pretty well with a hair dryer on high in the process of trying to the glass off and fried the LCD and digitizer and possibly more. Anyway he brought me over a bag of parts and asked if i could retrieve his data. He was running unrooted stock with a locked bootloader and I'm assuming debugging turned off but not sure.
So this is the part i start hitting my head against the wall. After reassembling it without the LCD/digitizer assembly pluged in, I pluged it in via USB and it installs it's self as a MOTOROLA PHONE, and seams to be using the USB INPUT and HID Compliant Vendor Defined Device drivers. I cant for the life of me get it to use the right drivers. I've installed Motorola's driver/device manager and run the Motorola driver installer but nothing is working.
Really don't know that much about the Moto X as I don't own one myself but i'd assume that it should install as a specific device and not a generic MOTOROLA PHONE as well as using MTP drivers instead of USB INPUT
Basically though, short of the driver issues, my main question is. Is there anyway of pulling data from a headless, bootloader locked, ADB disabled device? I personally don't think there is but just in case i thought i'd ask.
Would rather not buy a new LCD/Digitizer assembly for $70 if the main board got fried from the heat of the hairdryer, but might have to if there's no other way, at least then I could see what going on.
Have checked though the forms and didn't see any other similar topics on this, so if I missed it please link it.
Thanks ahead of time.
~Ninjaboy837
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now , I'm not a hardware specialist or anything ,but , do you suppose you could somehow "Directly" access data from the NAND chip ?
Ref: " https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola+Moto+X+Teardown/16867 "

I did a little research on the NAND chip, unfortunately there is an NDA in place, so you probably won't be able to find out what the pins are to access it. I have been wrong before. Problem with using the hair dryer on high is that heat=energy in motion, which can cause electron flow.
If your friend didn't take appropriate precautions, ie grounding himself, ESD pad, dry hands, it is possible he shorted the entire assembly, and all his data is destroyed, especially if he didn't disconnect the battery.
Finally, the bag of parts=sensitive electrical components in a heavily charged static bag. Chances are that could've killed any chance of getting data.
The reason that your computer is recognizing the device as a Motorola Phone and that is it is as a failsafe, the processor isn't completely dead and is doing what it can to help you, by trolling you.
Good Luck!

I picked up a 4.4.2 Moto X with a bad battery and a bad (broken panel, no display) screen assembly. It did the same as what you're describing when hooked up via USB. After installing a good battery and plugging in a working screen it booted right up without any trouble. Before the parts the phone would light a green LED in the earpiece when plugged into the charger. Unless he really super baked the crap out of it you can probably get it working with a screen and possibly a battery.
If you do need a screen I was looking at the $52 dollar option on ebay myself before I found another option, it's auction number 251892071870 .

I'd suggest trying this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2786395
You'd be able to run the recovery by pressing all three buttons when the device is off to get to the bootloader. Then when you guess that its loaded press volume down once, then volume up once. Then wait 10-30 seconds for recovery to load

tormin said:
I picked up a 4.4.2 Moto X with a bad battery and a bad (broken panel, no display) screen assembly. It did the same as what you're describing when hooked up via USB. After installing a good battery and plugging in a working screen it booted right up without any trouble. Before the parts the phone would light a green LED in the earpiece when plugged into the charger. Unless he really super baked the crap out of it you can probably get it working with a screen and possibly a battery.
If you do need a screen I was looking at the $52 dollar option on ebay myself before I found another option, it's auction number 251892071870 .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I might just have to try that, i did notice with the battery out and connected via USB the phone shows up as a USB INPUT, but as soon as you plug in the battery and the X8 computing system then it switches to MOTOROLA PHONE.

mrmidnight said:
I did a little research on the NAND chip, unfortunately there is an NDA in place, so you probably won't be able to find out what the pins are to access it. I have been wrong before. Problem with using the hair dryer on high is that heat=energy in motion, which can cause electron flow.
If your friend didn't take appropriate precautions, ie grounding himself, ESD pad, dry hands, it is possible he shorted the entire assembly, and all his data is destroyed, especially if he didn't disconnect the battery.
Finally, the bag of parts=sensitive electrical components in a heavily charged static bag. Chances are that could've killed any chance of getting data.
The reason that your computer is recognizing the device as a Motorola Phone and that is it is as a failsafe, the processor isn't completely dead and is doing what it can to help you, by trolling you.
Good Luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, some people don't realize the big affects of not following little precautions.
Found a article on hackaday about reading NAND chips in place on the pcb might give that a try if all else fails.
http://hackaday.com/2010/12/24/reading-nand-flash-chips-without-removing-them/
http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/2007/05/05/read-embedded-flash-chips/

raddacle said:
I'd suggest trying this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2786395
You'd be able to run the recovery by pressing all three buttons when the device is off to get to the bootloader. Then when you guess that its loaded press volume down once, then volume up once. Then wait 10-30 seconds for recovery to load
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When booting in to the Moto X's recovery does it start ADB? I'm not sure if ADB is enabled or not, but it's worth a shot. I've gotten spoiled with My TWRP recovery auto enabling ADB on recovery boot.
ooo just saw this, there might be hope after all
Ricky Divjakovski said:
for people who dont have adb enabled, i suggest you contact a kernel developer to automatically enable it in the default.prop and sideload the kernel in recovery!
i broke my S3 on stock so nothing was enabled.
i enabled adb via the default.prop and compiled the kernel and flashed in recovery(sideload).
now i have full control over the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Ninjaboy837 said:
When booting in to the Moto X's recovery does it start ADB? I'm not sure if ADB is enabled or not, but it's worth a shot. I've gotten spoiled with My TWRP recovery auto enabling ADB on recovery boot.
ooo just saw this, there might be hope after all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm you know what, you're right. It seems Nexus devices have adb on stock recovery- Moto's don't. Though what you found might be gold, I hope you can bust out a modified kernel- or know someone who does.
EDIT: Though I don't know how you're going to get the Update.zip on the phone to flash it. Worse comes to worse you could plug a mouse into the phone and play a guessing game of what you're clicking on

Bricked After Attempting to Install Windows 10 64 bit

As the title says.
Attempted to boot from a USB stick with a 64 bit version of Windows 10 on my Air III 32gig. Blue screen came up saying there was a problem and Windows needed to restart.
After that, it shutdown and now it won't turn on.
I had tried the 32 bit before and it refused to boot from the USB.
Has anyone else experienced this? Did I use the wrong OS version? Any fixes?

Lord_Santa said:
As the title says.
Attempted to boot from a USB stick with a 64 bit version of Windows 10 on my Air III 32gig. Blue screen came up saying there was a problem and Windows needed to restart.
After that, it shutdown and now it won't turn on.
I had tried the 32 bit before and it refused to boot from the USB.
Has anyone else experienced this? Did I use the wrong OS version? Any fixes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, did you solve it?
It happened to me exactly the same.
Greetings.

juanr2 said:
Hi, did you solve it?
It happened to me exactly the same.
Greetings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should have read before you did that, this teclast BIOS has a "64bit anti-install protection", that means the tablet will brick itself when you trying to boot any 64bit OS.
The only solution here is to flash bios with a tool following this GUIDE

Unbrick bios after Windows 10 64 bit (Solved)
Same thing happened to me. I was in a rush and flashed the wrong Windows version. The previous post with a link to instructions isn't helpful, but for future reference and anyone else that encounters this problem the hardware/software fix is not too difficult.
To fix a hard bricked device (doesn't power up at all) you need to do the follow:
Buy a CH341A USB 24 25 Series EEPROM Flash BIOS Programmer.
Buy a 1.8v flash SPI adapter.
Buy a flash chip socket adapter.
Download the CH341A BIOS programmer software. Use the latest version. Version 1.29 was the only version that worked for me.
Download the BIOS file for your device. I used a dual boot version 2.02 without any problems.
Disclaimer. I take me responsibility if you brick you device even more bricker by improperly flashing your device.
You can obtain the flash hardware from either AliExpress or Ebay and it should be less than $10 including s&h.
The chip adapter is mostly for convenience unless your into removing the BIOS chip from the motherboard and into soldering.
The process:
Assemble your flasher. Follow the diagrams on the flash components. My flash chip W25Q64FW is a 25 Series EEPROM, so I aligned the parts according to the diagrams on the flasher. All the parts are plug and play, and assemble by number, so no soldering is necessary.
Remove the back cover from your Teclast device. It's just plastic clips no components are attached to the cover.
All the YouTube videos recommend to disconnect your battery, so it's probably best to disconnect it. I found it's easiest to cut the positive wire at the soldering point, and just re-solder after flashing is complete.
DON'T attempt to flash or read your BIOS without using the 1.8v regulator. You will fry your BIOS chip, brick your device even more and will need a new BIOS chip to fix your device if that's possible.
Insert your flasher into your Windows computer. Install the flashing program drivers. Run the flashing program.
Attach the flash clip to your BIOS chip. The red lead wire on the clip should attach to the dot indentation on your chip. The indentation should have a painted dot, but just in case the they are not in the same place use the indentation and not the painted dot.
Use the flash program to erase, verify it's blank, program, and verify the program was successful.
Disconnect the clip from the BIOS chip. Temporarily attach the battery lead wire to verify the device is working. If all works solder the battery wire, attach the back cover, and your done.
There are YouTube videos explaining the entire process if you need additional help. The entire process should take less than 15 minutes.
Hope this is helpful to someone in the future. Enjoy.

i used these just last week to get out of a Win10-x64 flash brick :
CH341A 24 25 Series EEPROM 24C02 24C08 24C16 Flash BIOS USB Programmer UK STOCK
SOIC8 SOP8 Test Clip For EEPROM in-circuit programming cable + 2 adapters - UK
no regulator needed, i did desolder BAT+, used flashing program v 1.18.
There's 2 tricky bits...the back cover comes off way more difficult than I had expected... Without a plastic spudger or a guitar plectrum it would be near inpossible. Even with the proper tools, a couple of the plastic tabs snapped off. The tablet still closed fine though.
Another tricky thing is getting the flash clip / test clip seated properly onto the BIOS chip. Clip it on, and push detect button in the flash program. If it returns $FF under the button, reseat the clip onto bios chip, press detect again...repeat untill there is no more $FF under the button. Only then proceed with the flashing.
Good luck, don't hesitate to ask questions.

Tommmii said:
no regulator needed, i did desolder BAT+, used flashing program v 1.18.
There's 2 tricky bits...the back cover comes off way more difficult than I had expected... Without a plastic spudger or a guitar plectrum it would be near inpossible. Even with the proper tools, a couple of the plastic tabs snapped off. The tablet still closed fine though.
Another tricky thing is getting the flash clip / test clip seated properly onto the BIOS chip. Clip it on, and push detect button in the flash program. If it returns $FF under the button, reseat the clip onto bios chip, press detect again...repeat untill there is no more $FF under the button. Only then proceed with the flashing.
Good luck, don't hesitate to ask questions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info, I did use same hardward and revived with X98 Air 3G from failed update to 2.05.
Initially I ordered the 1.8v Adapter as well, but for some reason the seller didn't send it. Then I just TRIED without it, and WORKS.
I know it's dangerous to overvoltage, but since it's bricked and another new W25Q64FW is just about $5, if anything...
My X98 Air 3G is happy with v2.05 + Win10 x86 1909 now

Hi,
Is it possible to use the test clip to avoid the desoldering/soldering with this method... I also tried to install a 64bit version on windows. Ive seen tutorials on youtube where someone uses this clip to make contact with chip and programmer.. so no need to remove the chip. Also how does the 1.8v regulator fit to the CH341? I cant see any tutorials on this part.
John
PS Sorry for bringing an old thread to life...

Wallace4793 said:
Is it possible to use the test clip to avoid the desoldering/soldering with this method...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is exactly the method people on here are using.
Wallace4793 said:
Also how does the 1.8v regulator fit to the CH341? I cant see any tutorials on this part.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As the person right before your post has said, you don't need the regulator.