yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] leswgnr:
I made a Firekit awhile ago out of curiosity, tried to boot it at home on an older desktop that seemed to include USB boot as an option, but never got it to work. Brought it into work and booted first time on a newer machine, so bios or Mobo issues is possible, although I've heard it can also be the stick also.

I don't remember the error being "unable to find a medium containing a live file system", tho. That almost sounds Linux wasn't installed correctly.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
Sorry man........thank you though.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Regionativo:
Idea from another thread

This is just a shot in the dark but I guess doesn't hurt to try (I don't think it can get worse).

Recently while trying to hack my wife's galaxy ace I screwed something and bricked the phone, nothing would work (the phone wouldn't even turn on) and found that at least for that phone there is a workaround to "revive" it which is: take out the battery, connect to PC via USB, press the key combination to get into what they call 'downloading mode' (in the case of the galaxy ace is home button + volume down + power), reinsert the battery (yeah, it was not easy as I only have 2 hands...), apparently it works by bypassing whatever bootloader is used on the phone to 'boot' off of the pc and go directly into the mode used to flash stuff on the phone (I won't pretend to know what happens, it simply does).

I am thinking something like this might reset whatever is wrong on the booting mechanism and hook onto the PC in fastboot mode?

Again, this is from another forum, another device, I did use it on my wife's phone and it worked (obviously) and again, I am not saying it might possibly work with the Kindle Fire, but then again, what if it does. I know if it were my case I'd try it :)
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
I let the Live USB creator do it. Select the stick, pick your ISO, push the button. I haven't a clue.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
That is a thought.....even though I explained how I feel about all this in my PM, I'll think that one over. I have a 120GB SSD for a boot drive, and a TB HDD as storage. I could install it on the TB HDD, change the boot order so it looks at the HDD first, correct? I'll sleep on that one too.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thepooch:
Did you format it first maybe try pendrive to create it instead leave your self some persitant drive to place the kit in maybe a gig or so . Did it this way to sbf my droid x quite a few times
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
Yup....formatted it first.

Man I'm tired tonight......I have some work tomorrow...thankfully, so it may be Thursday before I consider attempting anything new.

If I didn't have CM7 and Gapps sitting on there, ready to flash, and Go Launcher Ex already on there, in use, it wouldn't bother me a bit to just get Amazon to replace it, but they might question those items. :rolleyes:
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
As a matter of fact he tried two different LiveUSB creators

and on two different computers. Same error.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thepooch:
Get some rest and its very likey that amazon won't look
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kinfauns:
Or you can use a utility like macrium reflect to mirror your boot drive and save it as an image to your larger drive. It will also let you create a bootable CD that will let you restore the image back to your drive when you are done.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
We never did try it on my wife's machine. That was where we were both fed up, lol. We spent about all day on it, off and on.

We did try booting straight from the ISO on the flash drive, and then with LiveUSB on a flash drive....same error. And both 32 bit and 64 bit. Weird.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Regionativo:
Or not...
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] leswgnr:
Definitely try it on a second machine, but get some rest first. Somewhere I have the one I created that I know works. I could always ship it out to you to try.

---------- Post added at 07:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:20 AM ----------

I read through some of the posts that were getting the same error, and as was mentioned, the resolutions were all over the place. Some of the easier ones to try, if you haven't already, were to ensure your not using usb 3.0 devices or ports, and unplugging all other USB devices while you boot.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
I was using USB 3.0 ports.......never thought anything of it....hmmm.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
Well folks.....I need some sleep. Much thanks to all who have helped me out. I felt good last night when I jumped into it, and expected SOMETHING to go weird, but not like this.

Had I installed TWRP first like I was supposed to, I might be up and running, with my Android tablet, but I spaced on that. Can't cry over spilled milk. Tomorrow is a new day, and I have to work, so no "tech" stuff tomorrow.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
I'm just going to go ahead and say it. Sleep is for the weak (not the week).
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kinfauns:
It's gonna be awfully quiet in Q&A tomorrow... ;)
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
Haha.....sorry to disappoint. You guys have plenty of noobs to keep you busy....you'll never know I'm gone!

Hey.....just a thought, since the USB 3.0 thing got brought up. The kindle was plugged into the computer via USB 3.0. I know it's grasping but....could that have played any role at all in this?

kinfauns......you might have missed when I asked this....

My wife's computer( 8+ year old Dell) at least told me it was an unknown device, and it appeared/reappeared in device manager when plugged in/unplugged. But my machine won't even see it at all.

But, my wife plugged her Kindle in to my machine, just for fun, and it saw it, installed the drivers, etc. etc. Ran KFU, ADB status online, status 4000........you know the drill, and probably read my post. It all points to my Kindle, like you said. Is it strange to you though that it showed up as unknown device on my wife's machine?
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kinfauns:
I guess it's not tomorrow in California yet.

It's a little odd, but I would think that the device would still identify itself, so it coming up as an unknown device is still problematic. You might want to look into the properties for the device and take a look at the hardware IDs and see if they match the KF values. That's what Windows will use to load the device drivers.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thepooch:
Yeah but try drivers on xp ewwhh. When I get home I'm gonna try and force feed my xp machine those unsigned drivers.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] hunterhk:
My money's on the USB 3.0, since that's new and these drivers we're using are ancient. KFU is far from having tested every possible configuration and I'd wish they would stop encouraging noobs to use it; I had problems using KFU and that's despite knowing my way around Android and ADB.

Reboot computer, turn off the kindle. On the computer, open device manager. Plug in the kindle, and turn it on if it doesn't by itself. On the computer, look for anything new named "unknown" "kindle" "amazon" "galaxy" or "ADB". If nothing, click action => scan for hardware changes. Check again; you may have to open up every submenu if the USB is that messed up.

If nothing still happens, something essential to USB operation is corrupted. For most USB devices this means getting thrown away. For the Kindle, it means either using recovery or opening it up.

If something shows up, immediately right click => properties => details => property => hardware ids. Write down the values. You can use this to manually install drivers.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
I did look for it thoroughly in device manager.....doesn't show up there at all. But as unknown device on my wife's old machine. I'll try again later, just to be extra sure, but it's not showing up.

Yeah, it's got regular USB ports too, but the USB 3.0 was in front, so it was the natural port to use, and it's what I use for everything else.....if that's even part of the problem.

Sorry kinfauns.........had to squeeze one in before going to work. :)
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
To summarize:

I think we can all agree that when the Kindle shows up in the Device Manager as an unknown device, the problem lies within the Kindle itself and not the computer. We know we're looking at either a hardware issue or a software issue, but as of now, the only way to confirm/fix it is with a bootable Linux distro. There are a few options for doing this:

You can install Linux over your current Windows installation, but that would be a little too extreme for what you want to accomplish so it's really not an option to consider (die hard Linux users/Windows haters might disagree).

You could install a Virtual Machine to run from within your current OS. It would need use a portion of your hard drive but you can adjust the amount of hard drive space needed. There are a few good VMs out there but they usually cost somewhere in the range of $40-$60. Oracle makes an free open source VM called "Virtualbox" that's not as easy to use "out of the box" as some of the paid VMs, but it's definitely something to consider.

Your last option, of course, is a bootable USB. Theoretically this should be the easiest to set up, but as you well know, it isn't always the case.

In your specific situation, when trying to boot from USB you keep receiving the same error: "unable to find a medium containing a live file system". Everything points to this as being a problem with your BIOS setup. It's indicative of having firmware that's unsupported by the Linux kernel. Unfortunately, as it's already been confirmed, the very nature of this error means that many different things can cause the same error and thus the possibility of many different solutions.

The most likely to be the cause of this error is trying to boot from the USB while using a newer computer. This alone could cause many different things to cause the same problem on the same machine. Considering this, it would be best to try it from an older computer to eliminate as many variables as possible.

Other possible solutions include:

* Confirm the MD5 checksum of the ISO download

* Use USB 2.0 rather than USB 3.0 ports

* Set first boot to USB-HDD

* Set boot order to: USB, HD, CDROM, or disable all but USB

* Set SATA to AHCI as opposed to IDE if availible

* Unplug any other USB storage devices

* Disable graphics ACPI management

* Set PCI to routeIRQ

* Use onboard graphics as opposed to graphics card

* Pray (hey, it never hurts)

If all else fails, a user from one of the Ubuntu forums found success with the following solution:

As soon as you are able to successfully boot into Linux we can continue to help determine and/or fix your overall problem and get you going again.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kinfauns:
I'm going to agree in principle with everything soupmagnet said.

I just think the more obscure a potential solution gets, the less likely it's going to help your situation. The best course of action would be to try to get a straight up Linux installation on your computer and see what happens.

One more thing and the primary reason I've posted a followup here... Don't bother with Virtualbox. The last time I tried it, I spent hours before I figured out that its USB implementation doesn't play nice with adb, so I wouldn't trust it with fastboot either.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
I did have the boot order set right the other day, and I do have it set to AHCI, because of my SSD.

The VM thing sounds like a bit of a pain. EDIT: Really sounds like a pain now........after reading the post above from kinfauns.

One thing we didn't do the other day, mainly because it was getting late in the day, and we both agreed we were fed up at that point, was try it on the old Dell.

I may do the LiveUSB Creator thing again, and slap that ISO back on the USB drive, change the boot order on her computer, and see what happens. If it boots into Ubuntu, I'll try to contact you. It would be tomorrow, not today, but I may try that. That machine has regular USB ports too, so no USB 3.0 to even consider.

Sounds like it's not that there is something wrong with my computer, as much as Linux just doesn't like to play with it, yes?

Do you still think there is a chance we'd find a solution with opening up the Kindle and doing the shorting trick, or is that pretty much set in stone that it's getting opened?
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
Let me ask you this....since I have two hard drives, SSD for boot and HDD for storage, it obviously would have to go on the HDD, and change the boot order so it looks at that first, but would it be as simple as dropping the ISO right on the HDD, and changing the boot order and rebooting? Never done anything like that, so I have to ask. And, it wouldn't look at the SSD right after and try to but windows too, correct? I hope that wasn't TOO stupid of a question.

And if this all works, simply delete linux from the HDD when it's all over, and put the boot order back where it was.

But then, we're still talking about my new computer, were you talking about the older Dell? It has one HDD.

Anyone have a big magnet I can borrow? :p
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
What kinfauns is saying is that the specific VM made by Oracle, Virtual box, is a pain to set up. The others are actually pretty easy.

You may still need to make sure other parts of your BIOS are set up correctly.

Yes and no. The newer hardware in your computer obviously wasn't around when Ubuntu 10.4 was, but that version of Ubuntu is the most supported and less likely to cause problems. Newer versions of Ubuntu probably won't have the necessary packages installed to work well with firekit

The "shorting trick", and all that follows, requires a working Linux install.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
Whoops....I had worded that question wrong. I meant do you think there is any chance there is still a solution without opening the Kindle? Sorry.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
Assuming you have backed up your HDD you can set it up on it's own partition. Just know that doing this will result in formatting the drive and potentially losing the data that's currently on it. Afterwards you would create a bootable cdrom, change the boot order to cdrom, and select the partition you want it installed to. And you would still need to set up your BIOS correctly.

I don't suggest doing it to the Dell.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thepooch:
Anyone have a good teardown video here's what I came across http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=/watch?v=MGLn1TVAITQ&v=MGLn1TVAITQ&gl=US
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
I hooked up my Kindle to her computer again, and today it showed as other USB device. Right clicked, went to properties, then details, and here's what it said

USB\VID_1949&PID_0006\0123456789ABCDEF

Where do I find the KF values to see if they match?

It's weird, but KFU can't install the drivers on her computer. Says install failed. That I don't understand either.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
That's a very interesting result. What did you do differently this time? When you plug your device in does it stay connected as "unknown USB device"? And you're not able to install the "adbwinusb.inf" manually?
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
Same as yesterday, and yes, it stays connected as unknown device. A balloon comes up on the desktop too, when I plug it in, saying unknown usb device detected. My computer isn't even doing that. If I "browse" to it, it says no drivers exist.....something like that. Can't remember the exact wording.

Just to add, I don't have a "adbwinusb" in my KFU drivers folder. I "browsed" as close as I could get, and even tried yesterday typing the specific location in, and no go.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kinfauns:
I'm even more inclined to believe you broke your bootloader based on that hardware ID. Even if you get your drivers working with it, flashing anything else onto there is going to be a crapshoot. I think you're looking at opening up the case and getting it to USB boot mode.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
Well, it's pretty much end of story on getting my drivers to work with it, wouldn't you say?

Can I kindly ask.......is all this why you prefer the manual method you wrote the guide for? I think the computer crash is most likely the real culprit, but had I done TWRP first, I might have saved this, like you said. But, the crash occurred right when I pressed enter for the command ti install FFF.......might have still crashed had it been TWRP. It was coincidental, but talk about the worst timing.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
Does it say "unknown USB device" or just "unknown device"? Yesterday it was just "unknown device" but today it's unclear if something has changed or information was left out.

And the correct driver name is "android_winusb.inf", not "adbwinusb", and it has to be there somewhere. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kinfauns:
To use a crude analogy, the bootloader is the front door into the house. If you jam up that door, you can't get in there. The recovery is just a separate room of the house, so you can lock that door, burn it up, whatever, but you'd still have a way into the house and fix things. That's why I was suggesting you flash TWRP and use that as a way of putting in a new door from inside the house. As things stand now, you have to burrow underneath the house, put in a temporary door in order to put in a new/permanent door.

Yes, the analogy sucks... I told you it was crude.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thepooch:
No it was perfect great analysis :-)
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
Actually, I thought it was pretty clever. Except I would have entered the house from another dimension (Linux).
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
You know, it might have said unknown USB device yesterday, but I thought it said unknown device. I was tired yesterday, so now I'm not totally sure. It says unknown USB device today.

Here's what is in my drivers folder, under kindle

http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h412/ukiah5060/kindledrivers.jpg
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
I liked it. I don't quite speak the same language as most of you yet, so this works for me.

I'm a painting contractor that is fascinated by this stuff, so I have some catching up. :)
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
And I can't tell you how much it sucked when I realized I went out of order, and knew I probably just adopted a huge headache. I just plain spaced on that, and paid the price.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
I'm on the fence about this Firekit, but may be willing to try it, and I saw the video on popping the back off, and it's not that bad, but his instructions say it has to be 32 bit compatibility, and my machine is running Windows 7 64 bit, so how is it going to work, or "should" it be working with my machine? That's what makes me wonder about the older Dell. They say to do the LiveUSB thing too.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1430038

He also says follow the directions to make a USB stick, but which directions? http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

How to create a bootable USB stick on Windows http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

How to create a bootable USB stick on Ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/create-a-usb-stick-on-ubuntu

I'd be using ubuntu, but on a windows machine.........so which directions do I follow?

A couple hours ago, I had almost no willingness to do this, and now I'm thinking about it. I probaly have tomorrow off, so I might give it a go, but I get the impression this is fairly straightforward, and the suggest LiveUSB, which to me, is just less hassle. I'm not formatting my HDD and installing Linux to do this. LiveUSB works, I take kinfauns offer and send it to him, or it goes back to Amazon.

It seems to me the 32 bit ubuntu would work on the older, 32 bit Dell. Plus, no USB 3.0........or the risk of a crash again. That's just what I see though.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thepooch:
You might run into the same issue using the USB 3.0 if that was the initial cause of the crash.

I did find this persons post very interesting though http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1650738
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kinfauns:
Just make sure to grab the 32-bit version of Ubuntu. It'll be fine. The version of Windows you are running has nothing to do with it.

EDIT: You are using Windows to create the Ubuntu USB stick. You want to follow the directions for doing it on Windows.

I think you are a little confused about this... The stick itself will hold an entire operating system. It's not something you will run on top of Windows. You will boot from the stick and not your hard drive. Your Windows OS will have no bearing on how the USB stick works. This is just between your computer hardware and the Ubuntu Linux OS.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
That's something I didn't think about earlier. You need the Ubuntu 32bit (i386) if you intend to use the "firekit", which will probably only work on your 32bit Dell. (I'll need clarification on that...I've never even tried to install a 32bit OS on a 64bit machine so I'm not sure if its even possible)

Regardless, you shouldn't need the "firekit" to fix your problem, only Linux, so whether its 32 or 64 bit doesn't matter for now. And you definitely shouldn't need to open your device since it will still power on, so forget about that.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
No, I'm not confused at all about that. :) I know how it works, just making extra sure which one.

soupmagnet and I did this a couple times the other day, and he said to try the 64 bit because I have 64 bit windows......said it was a hardware thing. This was after the 32 bit didn't work. Of course, neither worked.

I'll ask you.......should I try this on the Dell? It didn't seem to like my computer, but we tried version 10. something. Maybe it will like the latest one....*shrug*
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
Well, we tried 32 bit the other day, and you said that it probably wasn't working because my machine is 64 bit, so we tried that.

One of the scenarios in Firekit sounds exactly like where I'm at. If I don't have to open it, and this LiveUSB boots up on the Dell, and I see that Ubuntu desktop, I'll have hope.

Why don't you think I'll have to open it?

kinfauns is pretty sure I broke the bootloader and I'll have to open it. I'm all for not opening it, but it sure seems like it has to happen. I get that ubuntu desktop, I'll be game for most anything........I think.:p
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Thepooch:
I used the 32 bit version of Ubuntu on my 64 bit machine to sbf my Droid works fine
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulweeper51:
And get the latest version.......even with the older machine? Here I go....asking questions again. :) Can't be 2 for 2 on screwing this up.....although I'm still going to blame the crash.:p

It seems at this point I should just do everything pokey9000 says, to the T, as far as the prep for this.
[Kindle Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soupmagnet:
I don't remember him saying you'll need to open the device. That may be the case but it's a last resort. There are a few things that can be done in Linux before resorting to the "shorting trick".