Save an old Kindle

Amazon did a bad thing. They decided that they were not going to “support” older Kindles that were sold before 2012.  Yes that’s a long time ago, but these devices really have a huge lifespan.  Their lack of support means:

1. No firmware updates.  Not a big deal, this stopped a while ago for these old devices.
2. No purchasing books from the device. Eh whatever, you can do that elsewhere if you really want.
3. No registering it to a new account or device resets
4. No downloading to these devices and
5. No “Send to Kindle” anymore!

These last three are a big deal! Not only did they lock you into their sandbox by not allowing you to download and transfer Kindle books by USB, they now don’t let you get your books on there AT ALL.  The bottom is dropping out of that sandbox and yes I just mixed my metaphors quite brutally. You’re welcome. So they are functionally “bricking” these old devices – the books you have on there are all you get.  Until you have to reset it for some reason, then it’s a doorstop.

Unless you happen to be tech minded.  I know a guy.

So I have a Kindle Paperwhite 1st gen, great device, and it just lasts.  I did not want to allow it to be e-waste, so I looked into if I could jailbreak it and free it to be, you know, a functional ereader. 

YES. You can.

With an old enough firmware, you can jailbreak a Kindle that is not even registered with Amazon.  So if you found this post too late, no worries.

First, go to https://kindlemodding.org.  Bookmark this, you’ll need it.

For my Paperwhite (PW), I had to follow these steps.

1. downgrade to firmware 5.4.4 (put the .bin file in the root and “update”).
2. Grab the “K5 Jailbreak” from https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=225030
3. Install that – note it’s a zip inside that archive file, you have to extract both of them – don’t just drag from the zip to the Kindle, you’ll get a weird error about a path being too long.
4. This jailbreak pretends to be another firmware – update to that and you’ll see *** Jailbroken *** on the bottom.  Insane, right!?
5. Don’t quit yet.  Couple more small things. After a reboot, go to the Kindlemodding.org site, and follow the instructions under “Post Jailbreak”.  You need to install the hotfix as they describe.

That’s basically it. But all you did was make it possible to run non-Amazon things on there, and you now want to add those things to run.  The most important are 2 system level apps…

1. MRPI (for “mobileread package installer” I think).  Grab the link suggested at Kindlemodding.org and just copy 2 folders to the root of the Kindle.  Done!
2. Many places suggest at this point you reboot 2 times in a row at this point. Do it. Lots of people found that the next steps fail until you do that.
3. KUAL – this is your launcher that kinda looks like a book in your Kindle library.  Download it from Kindlemodding.org and copy the Update_KUALBooklet_(version)_install.bin to the mrpackages folder. Safely eject the Kindle and click on the Kindle’s “Search” magnifying glass.  Type:

;log mrpi

Don’t forget the semicolon.  This should cause the MRPI framework to install whatever’s in the packages folder.  If it doesn’t work, make sure you have the hotfix insalled, and reboot.

If it worked, you should have a new “book” called “KUAL” in your library.  This is the launcher for all your new stuff.

Can we just get the new stuff now?

Thought you’d never ask.

If you get nothing else, get KOReader. 

Their website is actually https://koreader.rocks. Choose download and for my Paperwhite 1 I grabbed the “koreader-kindle-legacy”.  Put the .bin in the mrpackages folder BUT instead of doing the search trick (yes, it works), Go into KUAL, click the Helper menu, and tap “Install MR Packages”

Now to launch it, hit the KUAL book, choose “KOReader” and use the first option “Start KOReader”.

KOReader will let you copy books (of many formats) to the device by USB, download using OPDS, create and use folders, connect to Calibre, read RSS feeds, and way more. Get some great fonts, swipe on the left edge for backlight and get reading!

You just saved your old Kindle from the clutches of Bezos’ greed.

Postscript

If you want to get to the most recent firmware, you can download it and update manually.  However, once done, run the “hotfix” book and reinstall KUAL.  I think that will do it.

There is a step to avoid any over-the-air firmware updates, explained at Kindlemodding.org but I kinda doubt any new firmware will come out for this device.  Still, it’s very easy.