B&N Color Nook hack (root it)

A friend of mine bought the Barnes and Noble Color Nook e-book reader and hacked it. (rooted it)

...so after hearing the uses of it...I decided to get one and root it also.

In case you haven't heard, the Color Nook runs Android...with a B&N overlay. So the hack involves getting below the overlay.

There are a ton of instructions on this subject, but I followed these...mine has 1.1

NookDevs -the instructions said that for 1.1 go to this next link...

xda-developers -similar instructions as above...and a link to the current software...

I also viewed this video...seemed the most useful to me. (but allow the nook to power on by itself)

-So I used linux (Ubuntu) on a laptop with a built in SD card reader, ran DD...that one didn't put the nook into root.

--So I attempted win7 and the win32 imagewriter software listed in the instructions...couldn't write to the card.

--Finally I booted the first laptop into XP, ran the win32 imagewriter software...this one wrote to the card.

-With the Nook off, I put in the SD card, then plugged the usb cord into the XP laptop.

--twice, XP showed the new hardware popup...twice I cancelled it...and I waited.

UNLIKE the video, I did not attempt to turn the Nook on...after about 5 minutes, it turned itself on with an ANDROID image.

One thing that I didn't understand was how to find the icons etc...

-I did use the Android Market, and was able to install software

-So I read about replacing the default launcher.

-I installed all the correct software but still saw the default nook home page...

--ah, you have to install Home Switcher...then OPEN it on the Android Market page (at the bottom of the Home Switcher page...then set LauncherPro as the default.


I decided to re-root mine...the mylocation wasn't working...so I used this video to unroot the nook. For anyone who has done firmware hacks on stuff...this is easy...


So all working now! Android takes some getting used to, but the Color Nook works well!

-BTW, right now the Color Nook does not have bluetooth available (being worked on), and the WiFi does not support Ad Hoc networks (there is a workaround, but it is a bit of a kludge)