*** please note:  This was successful for me.  I’m sharing this in hopes it helps other parents.  This blog, or I, am not liable if this does not work when you try it on your kindle.***

There are so many pros to the use of technology.  For us using the Kindle Fire and Minecraft PE has been an easy extension and enrichment of our homeschooling.

But this has not been without its challenges.

What We Are Using

The girls have Kindle Fires, and this post was designed with the  5th generation that we have  with Amazon Freetime installed.  It allows the girls to download apps, and books for a small fee that we pay per year.

My two older girls have been blessed with a regular reading kindle as well for birthdays, and that Kindle Freetime software also carries over to those.  That in itself has been a little lifesaver for us as our girls are carnivores with books and are almost always reading.  During my time with my surgeries, having a seemingly endless library at their fingertips meant that no one had to feel guilty for not getting them to the library or making sure library books got back on time.

(No this is not an ad for Amazon Freetime, although now that I’m thinking about it that might be another affiliate to add someday.)

Anyways….  The challenge has been that the younger two have had to have their Kindle Fire tablets reset to factory defaults as it just stopped working.  The system files completely took over the internal storage and SD cards we had installed.

With the two younger ones it wasn’t a big deal they just wanted their tablets to work so if they lost stuff, they lost it.  My older two have hosted almost all of the worlds in Minecraft PE that the girls have created that I really wanted to have saved.

Now with Miss C’s tablet reaching the it really needs to be reset stage I was terrified I wouldn’t figure it out and was frustrated that (a) I hadn’t already done it knowing this was coming and (b) that I had to do it now instead of later.

So what was put off can no longer be.

Here is how I saved her games, and how I have put them back on her tablet after resetting it.

Please note:  This worked for me in October 2018 with a Kindle Fire 5th edition tablet.  I make no promises that it will work for everyone but I figure this will be a more comprehensive way of looking at things than most threads I found online and might help you make the jump if you need to do it.

Step 1:  Save the games.

You will need to be able to hook the tablet up to a computer for how I have done it.

1. Plug the usb cable into your computer.
2. Login to the device in Freetime, so your child’s profile.  (Amazon essentially seems to have one partition for my parent account and another for Freetime.  So I cannot view the files when I’m logged in as me.)
3. Plug the usb cable into your Kindle.
4. Open Windows Explorer to view the files on the Kindle. Open it up to see inside the internal storage folder.
5. Picture showing the path of This PC > Fire > Internal Storage
6. Create a folder on your computer to save the games directory to.
7. Copy the games folder from the kindle – the entire thing – to the save location on the computer.  This will take a while, depending how many games they have.  She happens to have 76, so it took a while.
8. Unplug the Kindle from the computer.

Step 2:  Resetting the Device

1. Login as the parent into the device.
2. Go to Settings
3. Find and open Device Options 
4. Then select Reset to Factory Defaults
5. confirm your parental password if you have that enabled.  We do.
6. Have it plugged into a charger, as this takes a bit.
7. Select Reset. 

Breathe…..

It will be okay.

Now just pretend you have a brand new kindle to setup.

1. Setup your Wifi
2. Register your Fire
3. Finish setting up the Fire like you did for the kid(s) with Parental Controls etc.
4. But what about Restore?

If you wonder about the question of Restoring your last backup…  This is my take.  I don’t blow away my kids tablet at the first sign of a problem so I’m worried a backup will just have the same exact issues.  So unless I find a compelling reason right now I’m actually not selecting a restore point and telling it Do Not Restore.

If I find a reason to use the Restore point later I will try to come back and update.  But since she hasn’t had a lot of space for a while, I’m not going there.

Step 3:  Erase the SD Card

Yes I said erase the SD card.  Even after resetting the device back to factory defaults I still have a mysterious 16gb being taken up on the SD card.

So to erase the SD card, go into Storage and scroll down the screen to where it says Erase SD Card.

Wow now there is space again.

Step 4:  Restoring Minecraft

So when I say this, this is basically downloading it again and it has to be activated.  It tried finding the necessary file in the tablet for many tries before I realized I had to actually let a kid play on it for a bit.

Login as your child on Freetime, and it will finish updating. 

1. Download Minecraft
2. Log the child into xbox live again and have them create a new world.
3. Let s/he play around with it for a bit, and name it something other than the standard My World.  I think I gave her 10 minutes of time to just play around with it so the tablet realized there was an actual game and an actual name not the here is a placeholder like I tried to do.
4. Restart the tablet.  Knowing previous file systems with other hardware I assume that doing this would help reset the file structure, but this step might not be necessary.

Now we are going to basically start again up at the top.

1. Plug the usb cable into your computer.
2. Login to the device in Freetime.
3. Plug the usb cable into your Kindle.
4. Open Windows Explorer to view the files on the Kindle.
5. Locate the folder you had saved on your computer.
6. Now you are going to copy the games folder from your computer to the kindle into the same Internal Storage folder that you got the Games folder from before.  The entire thing.
7. It is going to ask you if you want to Confirm Folder Replace – the answer is yes.  If you want to save a few times of doing this make sure to check the box at the bottom that says “Do this for all current items.” Then it will not ask you that again.  Otherwise you will have to keep clicking yes.
8. Wait a bit, it takes a while.  I know mine said it might take 23 hours, but it does not take anywhere near that long even for her 76 worlds.
9. Unplug the Kindle from the computer.
10. Restart the tablet once again this step might not be necessary but I’m doing it just in case it helps.

Let’s see if it works….

yeah!!!!

I hope this helps some other parent out there.

Blessings, Rebecca