# Putting Amazon books on an unregistered Kindle



## krm0789 (Dec 21, 2010)

My coworker appears to have accidentally done a factory reset on her K3 (it got stuck on the screensaver & she says it prompted her to hit "R" to restart-- now all her content is gone & it no longer has her Kindle's name in the top left). Amazon still sees the device as being registered, but the device itself doesn't (& won't until it's connected to wifi, right? It's not 3G)

If I help her download all of her content and put it on the K via USB... can I even do that before it identifies as being registered? & If so, will the content work after she registers? She's not sure when she'll be visiting her kids/getting access to wifi, & she'll be retiring before that so I want to get her as far into the process as I can since she struggles with it. But if none of the content will work & she's faced with deleting it, I'll just be creating more problems. Any ideas?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I'd suggest she simply re-register. . . .it's in the settings area on the device, probably one of the very first choices.  I'd guess that if she does that and then syncs, all her content will show up again in archived items and she can down load as she wishes.  She will need to be in range of a WiFi network to complete the process.


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## krm0789 (Dec 21, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I'd suggest she simply re-register. . . .it's in the settings area on the device, probably one of the very first choices. I'd guess that if she does that and then syncs, all her content will show up again in archived items and she can down load as she wishes. She will need to be in range of a WiFi network to complete the process.


Right, but she won't have access to wifi until she visits her children, & doesn't know when that will be. She doesn't have the know-how to get the books on herself (believe me, I've tried) so I'd like to help her as much as possible. Without wifi access, 'as far as possible' is getting the books on the K while it's unregistered, which is why I'm asking if I do so, will the books actually work once it's registered


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

If the Kindle itself doesn't know it's registered to the account, then the books may not open when you transfer then by USB anyway. I think though that the book files are device specific and not account specific so you will probably be ok.

Once she gets wi-fi access and re-registers, if there's a problem then - and I can't see why there would be if the books are already working ok at that time - she could just redownload them over the wi-fi connection. I presume she knows how to do that?


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## Andra (Nov 19, 2008)

Can you take her to a Starbucks or some other local place that has WiFi to try and re-register from the device?
I'm afraid that if there is confusion about the registration, downloading to a computer and side-loading won't work properly because of the DRM.


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## krm0789 (Dec 21, 2010)

Linjeakel said:


> If the Kindle itself doesn't know it's registered to the account, then the books may not open when you transfer then by USB anyway. I think though that the book files are device specific and not account specific so you will probably be ok.
> 
> Once she gets wi-fi access and re-registers, if there's a problem then - and I can't see why there would be if the books are already working ok at that time - she could just redownload them over the wi-fi connection. I presume she knows how to do that?


It's fine if she can't open them now, I'm just wondering if they'll work post-registration. I thought they'd be device-specific since you have to select which K you're downloading them before, but figured I'd ask in case anyone else knew.

No, she couldn't do it on her own via wifi, and I can't show her w/out it. I am making her a step-by-step guide with pictures for getting them from PC to K, since that's the only way she'll be able to do it from home, but I still anticipate phone calls. Something about the process just doesn't click 



Andra said:


> Can you take her to a Starbucks or some other local place that has WiFi to try and re-register from the device?
> I'm afraid that if there is confusion about the registration, downloading to a computer and side-loading won't work properly because of the DRM.


There isn't any place with free wifi close to work, unfortunately. That is my fear as well, though.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

You know your friend better than we do of course, but I find it hard to believe that it will be easier for her to transfer books from a PC via USB, than it will be to download them once she has wi-fi access to register. It's just menu - view archived items - click on your book and it's done. It's designed for people who have no technical or computer skills to use. If she can't manage to do that without help, I can't imagine she'll be able to operate a Kindle well enough to use it anyway. (Which is probably how she came to do a factory reset in the first place - it's more complicated to do that than it is to download from the archive!).

Can't her kids help her, if she's going to get wi-fi access when she sees them?


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## Andra (Nov 19, 2008)

Any chance of using the WiFi at your workplace (if you have it)?  Even if it's not something that normally allows that type of device to connect you may be able to ask an IT person for permission to connect once just to set it up.  Or an IT person may have a wireless router that can plug into the regular network and give you a temporary WiFi connection.
We do that for folks at our office from time to time.


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