yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Kindle Fire Android Development] james.shumaker:
Precisely my dilemma ... apparently

Although I'm not too keen on the wear-leveling specifics, this seems to be what has happened in my case. Once I had my KF resurrected, everything seems to be fine with the re-mapped partition table. Then things got hokey with lagging and freezes. Eventually I decided to do an experiment with the partition table and remap everything again. Sure enough, what was a clean and unimpeded process before got locked up while trying to use blocks that were previously a part of the new table. I kept inching up and up until I found a sector parted was happy with, but when I moved on to create the remaining partitions, deadlock. I have bad black literally all over the ssd, so it appears that CMWR effectively killed my KF. Hey, it goes with the territory - you play, you accept the risk and sometimes pay. I'm affraid that, for all those who might be able to resuscitate their KFs, there is an inevitable demise.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] garwynn:
Sorry for being possibly redundant but can you clarify on the "deadlocked" status? Did it freeze or just give an error?
[Kindle Fire Android Development] vbdss:
For me, everything is running smooth. No lags or freezes.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
vbdss what was you doing when you bricked it.

restore or wipe?
[Kindle Fire Android Development] vbdss:
Wipe, factory reset
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
thanks i think i read on the link about the samsung bug, that the bug effects different partition when a restore is ran to when a wipe is ran.

edit: i was doing a restore? maybe this is the difference between semifix or no fix at all?
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Entropy512:
A wipe will hit /data and /cache

A restore will hit /system, /data, and /cache (which can do more damage of course, esp. since /system is usually before /data and /cache in the partition table, and is frequently close to the kernel/bootloader partitions.) - Nandroid restores format the partition first
[Kindle Fire Android Development] james.shumaker:
Simply freezes when trying to create new partitions. There are simply way too many bad blocks all over my KF that it precludes my ability to get any functional use out of it unless there is a means by which these read errors (bad blocks) can be corrected. Right now, I've shelved it for the interim ... if not indefinitely, but would like to resurrect it to give my young one something to play with. As for myself, looking at the Galaxy Note 10.1 now ...
[Kindle Fire Android Development] minieod:
That's where I'm at...I got an Asus tf300

Sent from ICS using XDA.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] pbailey212:
Have any of you guys tried test disk to recover the damage partitions? I know its a long shot, but its worth a try. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

sent from my Nokia 5110
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Entropy512:
A question: Can you find a location that's "good" and one that's "bad"?

If you write to the "good" location after trying to write to the "bad" one, does the write fail until you power cycle the unit?

Interesting... That's a device with no reports of this kind of issue so far.

What is your mmc chip's name? (See previous posts on how to pull this info).
[Kindle Fire Android Development] vbdss:
How to use it? My partition table now

Model: MMC M8G2FA (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 7734MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 131kB 262kB 131kB xloader
2 262kB 524kB 262kB bootloader
3 524kB 11.0MB 10.5MB dkernel
4 11.0MB 212MB 201MB ext4 dfs
5 212MB 229MB 16.8MB recovery
6 229MB 296MB 67.1MB ext4 backup
7 296MB 307MB 10.5MB boot
8 307MB 312MB 5243kB ext4 splash
9 312MB 849MB 537MB ext4 system
10 2150MB 3000MB 850MB ext4 userdata
11 3000MB 3256MB 256MB ext4 cache
12 3256MB 7690MB 4434MB fat32 media msftres

Between partition 9 and 10 i lost a lot of space, how can i use the program to analyze that area if i cant make a valid partition
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
ok i can see kindle when in shell.

disk /dev/sdb - 5380 mb / 5131 mib - Amazon Kindle

what partition table type do i select?

intel

efi gpt (i presumed it was this one gpt?) but this hangs just like parted does:-(

humax

mac

none

sun

xbox
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Entropy512:
First item: There is no such fix in the Note kernels. Note kernels not only don't have a workaround for damage, they don't even prevent it in the first place. So far the only thing known is how to prevent damage. Samsung is now in contact with some of the developers on XDA, but I am fairly certain the solution presented will only prevent damage on Samsung devices, not repair it.

Third item: So far, Samsung has not given permission for a Google engineer with the repair information to give it out, so I would not expect them to provide it to you unfortunately. :(

I'm now in touch with a Samsung contact regarding this issue, hopefully we can change their stance on releasing MMC firmware update/reset information.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Hashcode:
I thought I saw a bit of source code from a newer kernel with changes other than the CAP_ERASE removed.

I was going to start there and see what they were doing.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] pbailey212:
I have used to restore pictures from a corrupted SD card before, so I'm not super familiar with it, but it says it can recover bad partitions and it works with all FAT and ext formats. That's all my knowledge on it. Sorry
[Kindle Fire Android Development] BrooksBlood:
I believe he meant that he bought an Asus transformer tablet after his kindle was bricked, not that he has damaged partitions on the Asus. Just a thought, could be wrong though.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] androidcues:
This thread needs a wiki. Otherwise we miss good info and focus on the irrelevant info. it reads like a great thriller from the likes of our dearly departed Ray Bradbury. Is a wiki going to be of effective use to any of you guys or is that going to be a waste of time and effort ?

Bluntly put... is this emmc illness the result of cheap Amazon boards or clockwork mod source or even the specific image made for flashing 3.0 kernels? Has anyone gotten to this point without ever flashing clockwork mod images?
[Kindle Fire Android Development] minieod:
i was replying to the guy i quoted, sorry for the confusion:

yeah, my bad....i use proper grammar so i definitely meant "i got (bought) an asus tf300" ... :)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Thepooch:
Hopefully I'm not out of line but we all should consider donating to a kindle replacement fund for hashcode. He has taken it to the extreme to make our devices better and to resolve this present issue. We wouldn't want to see progress hindered while he sorts this out. Thankyou Hashcode:D
[Kindle Fire Android Development] jacewt:
I am ready to contribute. He has been so amazing for this device.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Hashcode:
Let's not be too hasty. Give me a few days w/ the device as it is and see how this all turns out.

I appreciate the good will tho.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Thepooch:
its not really haste it an investment towards development.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Hashcode:
Update regarding buying a replacement device: I checked on Craigslist locally and literally found over 10+ listings in the area for $75-85 (!!).

Several generous XDA members have donated and I can cover that cost (if needed).
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
hash

buy one,

us mear mortals would love to give you something back.

should we just donate or is it best for someone to setup a slush fund.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] jacewt:
Just donate. He is much too nice to ask for that to be set up.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
thanks hash

a little $ in your account:-)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Entropy512:
Which kernel? The only kernel I've seen from Sammy that was safe had MMC_CAP_ERASE removed from mshci.c (the file for the Fire is different). There are differences other than this from other Sammy kernels, but this is the one that matters. Removing it has been the sole thing needed to, for example, render GT-N7000 Update3 source code safe.

It's the result of a combo of three things:

1) A defective eMMC chip - Specifically, quite a few Samsung eMMC chips are plagued with a severe bug that causes them to crash when a host issues an ERASE command to the chip. This issue has been plaguing Samsung users for a while now - you'll notice a few articles on the XDA portal recently regarding this.

2) A recovery that issues ERASE commands when formatting a partition - most Gingerbread recoveries don't, most ICS recoveries do.

3) A kernel that allows these commands to go through. I removed the flag that permits this from newer 3.0 kernels, which is why the recovery Hashcode posted a page or two ago may be safe (in fact will be safe IF it is the same bug).
[Kindle Fire Android Development] vbdss:
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/samsung-diligently-working-towards-hardbrick-fix/
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Entropy512:
So far, I don't think this will affect us.

Pretty much the one thing we need is the ability to upgrade the chip firmware and reset the chip. I don't think we'll be getting the info required to repair damaged devices from Samsung based on preliminary dialog. We already know how to protect devices with open source kernels from damage.

Even if we get a method for updating MAG4FA, VYL00M, and KYL00M firmware, we probably won't get a firmware package for M8G2FA as the contacts we have are at Samsung Mobile, not Samsung Microelectronics. Amazon is a customer of Samsung Microelectronics but a competitor of Samsung Mobile.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] legojerry:
Missing partition table here..been bricked for a while now. I'm willing to try anything. Stuck in fastboot, no ADB access at all.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] forest1971:
Since you still have fastboot, while waiting for the fundamental solution which still look like distance away, you can try some suggestions below:

Have you tried to install twrp using fastboot yet?

If cannot. Then you can try to boot from twrp.img using fastboot:

Boot into fastboot. Then place twrp211.img in the fastboot folder of your PC then run:

fastboot -i 0x1949 boot twrp211.img

you can omit "-i 0x1949" if already install custom rom before.

KF should then reboot into twrp recovery. Then you can use adb in the twrp environment. If yes, you can try to run parted using the code provided in some earlier pages. If parted can see the mmc even just as one big partition with the size of the whole mmc you can build the whole partitions table again. Hope it helps. cheers.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Jdom58:
Oh crap, reading here after the fact I think I am another victim of bricking my Kindle Fire.

I loaded up the Energy Rom from NRGZ28 in my kindle and booted into recovery. I hit the "Wipe Data" option and noticed after a couple of minutes that the application froze (it wans't doing anything) and would not respond to anything I did. So figuiring it was only data and not a system wipe I held the power button down for the 10 second reboot expecting it reboot into the current rom since all it was missing was data and I would just sign in and set up like I always do. How wrong was I, it is now off and will not turn on no matter what I do. Crap, after flashing roms for the last 3 years on phones and my Kindle since roms were available for it I think I made my first brick :(

I did not get to flash the new ROM so I know it wasn't that and Iv'e been using this recovery since Hash put it out for us so not sure what went wrong.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
it doen't sound like the bug.

is your battery dead?

what recovery are you using?

sent from my new non bricked kindle:-)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Jdom58:
Using the recovery in the OP

The battery was at 100% when I wiped the data in the recovery

I know that's what I thought, did not sound like the same cause but I got the same result, it just wont power on and the computer wont recognize it with the USB connection.

I found a thread "FireKit" using a USB boot that may help, can't try it till I get home later, here is the link.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1430038
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
edit. mmmm just reread your post. maybe it is.

what was your battery like before this began?

the reason i ask is everyone on this thresd who has the bug can at least boot the bootloader and a part of recovery. it doesn't normaly just kill all power etc unless it has effected your bootloader partition. and as you were wiping data when it crashed it makes me think you may be lucky.

edit 2. sorry to ask but have you held power button for 30 seconds?

sent from my new non bricked kindle:-)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
fire kit will work for you if its not the bug.

i always use the last option. usb_fix_permissons etc.

you will know what im talking about when you get there.

take No short cuts with firekit instructions and you should be good.

good luck:-)

big massive edit: if firekit or any other means work for you DO NOT use cwmr to wipe or restore. be careful. as written below it kills kindles.

sent from my new non bricked kindle:-)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Jdom58:
Oh yeah held power button 10, 15, 30, 60 seconds with no luck

Thanks for the advice, I'll let you know how it goes.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] legojerry:
Yes, I have TWRP installed and it will boot there. I then try issuing ADB commands.. such as adb devices, etc and it will return "device not detected".

I have used a Linux distro and also a laptop with vista, OSX, and also a laptop with XP. And a desktop with windows 7..just in case. Is it possible for ADB to be broken? It sure seems broken.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] forest1971:
ok. It looks like now fall back to the issue of adb driver for KF which have caused much headache for many members. If you already used Linux and not luck then it is a difficult case.

For me the solution below works perfectly:

The easy way:

http://www.jayceooi.com/2011/12/29/how-to-install-kindle-fire-adb-usb-driver-video/

and the hard way of the above not work:

http://www.jayceooi.com/2011/12/13/how-to-install-kindle-fire-adb-usb-driver/

Jayce is also a XDA member and he is very nice.

Also I would re-download KF utility and copy the new adb tool folder from there to make sure the file is not corrupted.

cheers.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Jdom58:
Guys, Had to use the usb trick of opening up the back of the kindle to short out the connection and after MULTIPLE tries got it just right but it went as far as

sending 2nd stage to target...

waiting for second stage response...

sending image to target...

fixing partitions...

<waiting for device>

then nothing happened for about 5-10 minutes so I tried again from the begining and got the same results, any ideas?

Thanks in advance
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
if you check screen is it on?

try disconecting usb and shorting pin whilst reinserting.

did you keep pin shorted after inital script showed up?

if you got here im sure you will get it.

sent from my new non bricked kindle:-)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
at this stage i would normally have battery disconnected and at this point i would normally insert battery.

sent from my new non bricked kindle:-)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
if this does not work for you try rekindle script (this also needs pin shorting) and just boots into fff/twrp i think

sent from my new non bricked kindle:-)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Jdom58:
if you check screen is it on? No

try disconecting usb and shorting pin whilst reinserting. tried that with no luck

did you keep pin shorted after inital script showed up? Yes and even while waiting for something to happen

Not sure whats going on yet but with enough trial and error hopefully I'll get it going. recharging the battery now just in case and will try it again in a couple of hours.

I was just checking to see if anyone else had run across this situation
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
mate ive used firekit and rekindle so much i wore away the copper pad. lol.

but every time, i seem to have to play about with different combo's to get it to take.

pokey told me to try having the usb cable inserted, run script then push power button.

sent from my new non bricked kindle:-)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Entropy512:
That sounds a lot like symptoms of the eMMC brick bug - it looks like it boots, and then starts to try and write new bootloader/partitions to your device, then it hits a corrupted part of the chip, which causes the eMMC chip to hang.

That would be useful - if you can boot into a working recovery with ADB we could at least confirm he's on a M8G2FA.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Jdom58:
Entropy, I think you may be right about the corrupted eMMC, that would explain why nothing I have tried all afternoon has gotten me past the < waiting for device>. I tried every script in every combination possible en everything ends up with the same result.

I'll keep experimenting but if anyone has an idea, by all means chime in.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
have you tried doing fire kit with battery disconected?

sent from my new non bricked kindle:-)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] sasquatch080:
Hey y'all I've been reading up on this thread from the beginning and I hope everyone gets their fire working again. I have a situation where my fire is working flawless on Biteblaze 's last rom. When the latest CWM came out I jumped all over it an even updated CWM through rom manager. That's where I stopped messing with it. I have not even made a back up yet so I'm all good except I can't change recovery to twrp. I've tried smirkis ' scripts since that's how I upgraded to fff 1.4 but fails through root browser, root explorer, and script manager. Does anybody know how I can change recoveries? This is not a urgent matter compared to those bricked I understand that. Any help is very much appreciated.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
turn off kindle

open a terminal where you have fastboot located on your pc and type

fastboot flash recovery /path/of/new/recovery.img/here

and press enter.

it should say "waiting for device" (if not you need to set up fastboot on pc).

then turn on kindle.

it should enter fastboot on bootup and flash new recovery. (i would recommend twrp 2.1.1

Edit: if you can use smirkit its safer.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] smirkis:
Double check the folder layout of smirkit, I use it daily to try new recoveries n bounce back to twrp. U have to enable root to run the scripts.

Side note, u updated thru rom manager?!
[Kindle Fire Android Development] sasquatch080:
Not sure if you can call it an update. When I went into rom manager t prompted me to flash CWM 3.x and I did. If I boot into recovery, it shows 5x version. Root browser actually tells me it "failed to run script ". Root explorer acts like it ran script but no reboot. I manually rebooted into recovery. CWM 5x every time.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] webdroidmt:
While others claimed success with Root Explorer, it never worked for me. However, Root Browser does work but it's really finicky. Try uninstalling Root Browser and then re-install from Play Store. A while back I had to do the routine of uninstalling and re-installing a few times until it worked.

EDIT: Once I even tried Rom Toolbox Lite from the same dev, which also has the Root Browser built in and it worked. Then the next time I used it with smirkit, it didn't. Go figure???

Mike T

---------- Post added at 09:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:04 PM ----------

Smirkis, what do you think about resurrecting gscript? This way we don't have to rely on Root Browser and its flakyness. Maybe even a mini gscript, :D just to cover TWRP 2.1.1 and FFF 1.4a. I remember gscript always working well for me. Thanks.

Mike T
[Kindle Fire Android Development] smirkis:
The reason I changed it was for safety. The new script verify md5 before flashing

I'll look tonight at what I can come up with for ease. I've never had issues with script manager. If your folder layout is proper it should work without issues.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] sasquatch080:
As soon as I get home, I'm gonna delete smirkiskit, uninstall root browser and start over with fresh installs. Should off done it earlier, but my kids hog my fire lol:rolleyes:

Will report results!
[Kindle Fire Android Development] webdroidmt:
Understood! I've never tried script manager but I'm sure a lot of people will appreciate if you can come up with some other easy alternative.

Hell, when Root Browser works, it doesn't get any easier but you never know if it's gonna' work. Thanks again.

Mike T
[Kindle Fire Android Development] sasquatch080:
Yes!!! Root Browser works. Uninstalling it and deleting all files worked. Backing up my current rom in TWRP 2.1 as I type! Thanks guys you're the best. Now to get my flash on! Lol. I'm keeping up with this thread though as I'm hopeful CWM issues get resolved. Hashcode can do it.!!!
[Kindle Fire Android Development] loki154:
So is it only clockwork that has this bug or could twrp have it too?
[Kindle Fire Android Development] BrooksBlood:
Only cwm recovery
[Kindle Fire Android Development] smirkis:
Only this cwm. Sbloods rendition actually works fine.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Hashcode:
To clarify: only recoveries based on a 3.x kernel which has the MMC_CAP_ERASE flag still enabled for the mmc.

And of all of the Kindle Fire recoveries, the only one to fit that bill was this one. Lucky me. :)
[Kindle Fire Android Development] garwynn:
Just curious, was HC the standard build for the Fire? In theory was possible here as well...
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Sblood86:
HC? Honeycomb? Fires stock OS is based off of Gingerbread.

Honeycomb to my knowledge still uses a 2.y kernel strain so it would actually be immune as well I believe. The 3.y kernel is ICS specific, there was even some discussion at one point in trying to get Honeycombesque hardware acceleration working before Hashcode got the 3.y kernel to it's current state.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] minieod:
Any sort of progress made here?

Sent from XDA app
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Veritass:
I still use it with no problems. :p
[Kindle Fire Android Development] minieod:
until you **** up and it breaks your fire
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Sblood86:
Depends on the emmc chip (again assuming the common theory of the bricks is correct) only devices with the faulty samsung emmc will be effected by this issue. If Veritass doesn't have that emmc there is a chance everything could work just fine.

Also, going with the same assumption if that's really the case the newer recovery that Hashcode compiled and is a few pages from the first has the mmc cap erase function disabled if I recall; in theory it should be safe for all but noone wants to sit there with it installed on a device and format it over and over just trying to brick there kindle.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Jdom58:
Just checking back to see if anybody had any luck reviving their Kindle from this, mine is still a paper weight :fingers-crossed:
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Entropy512:
Right now it's not possible to revive. There's a possibility that we may receive information on resetting the chip in 1-2 weeks. It's complex as I'll be receiving it from someone who may request that it be NDAed, even if it will be easy for any other kernel developer to reverse engineer the process with an instrumented kernel.
[Kindle Fire Android Development] Veritass:
I hardly use recovery so doubt I'll mess up. But I like this way better then twrp even if it can brick it ahaha good luck guys I'll do some system dumps if needed to find out why mine works =p
[Kindle Fire Android Development] lovejoy777:
be careful (i did mine with a restore).

one minute all working great the next POW one dead kindle.

(imho if you have the same chip and the same recovery it's only a matter of time).