# Lost Kindle - Can I recover my samples?



## GBear (Apr 23, 2009)

It's a common, sad story, but I lost my Kindle and will probably have to order another after a period of waiting to see if the airline finds it for me. I've been through the grieving process before with a cracked screen, though, so I'm not so much an emotional wreck this time! However, what's got me worried is the fact that I had built up a very large list of samples over time, which is where I've stashed all those books that I heard about and thought might be interesting, or else want to read but am hoping the price will come down.

I can recover my actual content and rebuild my collections, although it will take some time, but can I get a list of all my downloaded samples? If I go to My Account on Amazon.com, I can see a "Delivery Status" window that shows the last ten downloads, which includes samples, but that's the only record I see of samples. Is there someplace else I can look?

When I had a cracked screen, this wasn't a problem because I could still connect to the Kindle and download all the content to my PC, and the samples could transfer to the new Kindle. Not this time. With the next Kindle, I guess I'll have to start doing backups! Any suggestions for the best way to do this?

Thanks!


----------



## Morf (Nov 18, 2010)

It's not much consolation, I'm afraid, but I've just had a good look around all the places I can think of and I can't find a list of the samples I've downloaded either, so I suspect you may not be able to find them unless anybody else has a suggestion.

Obviously some of the more recent books would be listed in "Your Browsing History" on the Amazon website itself

Regarding backups, I'm sure you could backup the books by copying to your PC, but I'm not sure if you'd be able to recover them in the event of a loss - it may be that the DRM would prevent this. I've not played with this I'm afraid.

The only thought I have for the future is that maybe when you download the sample, you could also put the book in an Amazon wishlist, then you can go back to them again that way if you ever need to.


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Amazon doesn't keep an archive of samples the way it does of books that you've bought.  So, the best you can do is go back and try to remember what you had looked at as Morf suggests.  

For the future, a backup you keep yourself would work, though, because the samples don't have DRM. 

Regarding the loss:  you definitely want to go on to Amazon and de-register it NOW, so a finder can't buy books on your account.  I'd also suggest reporting it to Kindle support as they'll flag it so no one else can use it. . . .if it finds it's way home again, you just call 'em back and let 'em know.


----------

