LC-39A

how to root your nook simple touch in 2026

hello, bearblog! my name's discovery, and this is my first post here. it's nice to meet you!

i was directed here by my friend sol yesterday after i attempted to share this project on a website called spacehey. it aims to emulate old social media, particularly myspace. up until last night, i would have completely recommended it to anyone looking for that experience; unfortunately, i no longer think that's the case. blogs are meant to be long-form, if the user chooses, right? well, apparently, my long-form was just too long-form for spacehey. after it said “successfully posted,” it logged me out and said i got suspended for spam. that’s what i get for not typing it all in a document first, then pasting it onto a website… but there’s no visible character limit on spacehey, so how was i to know nookposting was "excessive content?" in lieu of waiting for them to tell me if i can get my account back, or at least sending me the text of my two blog posts before permanently murdering it, i'm going to just write up this process from scratch a second time. it's good brain exercise, especially since my day job is pretty mind-numbing. i'm dual-wielding computers to do this :P

the NST (model number BNRV300) was released in 2011 and is a small e-ink e-reader with no backlight. we want to expand its horizons, and use it for more than just whatever happens to be on it post-end-of-service! i was given a NST and a nook color about a year ago by my grandma - she got them at a garage sale for cheap but never used them - and both work perfectly. i knew i wanted to hack them, but never got around to it until now. life, y'know? the process is easy and totally possible in 2026, but the writeups are from 2011/2012/2013, and feature some vagueness and dead links. the guide below is my process, written in as clear of words as i can muster. i take no credit for any code work or the original process - that was done by folks much smarter than me - but i still hope this helps!

what you'll need

⦁ a fully-functioning nook simple touch, duh. ⦁ a computer! this guide will assume you run windows, but the few steps that change with mac and linux have documentation i'll link to. you'll be downloading a few lightweight, free programs and small files. ⦁ a microSD card and an adapter for your computer to read it - both very cheap and available at electronics stores and big-box stores! you may even already have these. if you've had android phones for many years running, you likely already have a microSD card, but please note: you must be willing to wipe the card completely! ⦁ a USB 2.0 cable ("android charger") to connect the nook to your computer. ⦁ computer proficiency and the ability to follow directions to the letter!

steps

IMPORTANT NOTE: do NOT change ANY file names during this process!!!

  1. let's get rolling. first step: boot up your computer (if you're not already on it), and make a folder on your desktop for this project. mine is eloquently named "nook stuff" :)

  2. next, open your browser and click HERE - this is an archive of files needed to root or recover a NST! this is the only place these files are available online as far as i can tell, so please consider downloading all of them for preservation! for this tutorial though, you'll only need two files: noogie.img.gz and uRamdisk_usb_adb_init_1.1_1.1.2.zip - so download those to your nook stuff folder! you can right click on the uRamdisk file and unzip that with your computer's default extraction.

  3. noogie.img.gz is an image file that will tell the nook how to run. it's in a compressed file format, but not the kind most computers can unzip without help. you'll need to grab 7-zip if you don't already have it. click HERE if so! once you install it, go into your nook stuff folder and right-click noogie.img.gz, then hover over the 7-zip item in the menu. click "extract here" and watch as the uncompressed system image pops up!

  4. (this step assumes you're running windows. if not, scroll to the sources at the bottom of this post and click the nookdevs.com link, and consult step 4 there, then skip to step 6 here.) now, we need to write the system image to your microSD card, so put it in your adapter and plug that into your computer. it may ask you to format the card to work with your system, so please do that, but remember to remove anything you need from the card before doing so!!!

  5. once that's set up, click HEREwin32diskimager/ and download this program. run it, and click the small folder icon, navigating to your nook stuff folder, clicking the uncompressed noogie file, and clicking open. then, in the dropdown menu labeled "device," select the letter of the microSD card's USB port - should be D or higher in the alphabet. if you click C and write, you will wipe your hard drive. be careful! you can find the correct letter in "This PC" in file explorer. when you're sure you have the correct file and drive, click "write" to make the microSD an image of a nook! :D

  6. now you need to double-check that it worked. navigate into your file explorer to "This PC" and click the microSD card. you should see EXACTLY these files when you sort by name: boot.scr boot.script booting.pgm cfg.bin flash_spl.bin MLO regenerate_bootscript.sh u-boot.bin uImage uRamdisk wvf.bin

  7. if everything is there, eject and remove the microSD card/adapter from your computer. now it's time to grab your nook: push and hold the power button to pull up the prompt and confirm that you want to shut it off. after it's totally off, flip it over so the back is facing up, and insert the microSD card into the slot near the top. the card needs to have its label facing you/its contacts facing the screen of the device. it will feel kind of weird to insert, but it's one of those spring-loaded type slots, so when you push on it to retrieve it, it will "pop" out - feel free to try it a few times to make sure your nook doesn't get hungry and eat it :P

  8. with the microSD inside, plug the nook into your computer and power it back on. if all has gone well, you'll see a splash screen with the nook "n" and the phrase "Rooted Forever" (a play on the slogan used for nooks, "Read Forever"). sweet! give it about 20 seconds to finish booting. you won't see any indication of it finishing; it will stay on the "Rooted Forever" screen (yes, i panicked here for a second before rereading the nookdevs instruction).

  9. now, navigate back to "This PC" and look at the glorious partitions on your nook :D you'll need to click on the one labelled "boot." open your nook stuff folder in another window, and copy the uRamdisk file. then, paste it into the boot partition on your nook - it will tell you there is already a file there named uRamdisk. you must choose the replacement option! your uRamdisk from the code archive is the rooted version.

  10. with that file replaced, go back and eject all the partitions of your nook, unplug the device from your computer, and remove the microSD card. maybe put it back in the adapter for safekeeping! you can now hold the power button on the nook for 10-15 seconds to reboot it. it will turn on like no changes have been made, displaying the original nook boot screen and booting to the main menu.

  11. FINAL STRETCH! we need to download one more thing. click HERE to download the android sdk platform tools for your OS. these are official dev tools for android developers, and can be useful if you want to dive deeper into that scene. if you already have android studio, you should already have these or be able to access them using the SDK manager, but this tutorial assumes you're like me and don't want to deal with that. no offense, android devs :P place these in your nook folder and unzip them, then copy the folder path that leads to them.

  12. open command prompt and type in the following without the brackets or quotes: "cd [replace this with your nook stuff folder path with the android tools inside]" - then hit enter. this tells command prompt to search/use just that folder.

  13. plug the nook back into your computer, go back to command prompt, type "adb connect" without quotes and hit enter. this will initialize one of the SDK platform tools, the android debug bridge. the ADB allows you to directly connect your computer to android devices that have root access that are plugged into your computer, letting you run commands from command prompt. it's a lot deeper than what we're using it for - if you're curious, do your own deep dive :D you should see it start a "daemon," a fun name for a background process in computing, at port TCP:5037. it will then list the serial number of your nook with the label "device."

  14. one last test: type "adb shell" without quotes and hit enter. if you see a simple # waiting for your input, you've succeeded in your quest! you have root access to your nook simple touch - complete freedom to do whatever you want with it. Yay :D

not too hard, right? in all honesty, this is a super simple process, but of course it couldn't be possible without the work of the actual hackers who figured it all out by reverse-engineering the thing back when it came out. there's lots of cool apps out there, so i'll walk through installing ReLaunchX as an example.

ReLaunchX is a continuation/fork of ReLaunch, an app developed to expand the user's ability to manage what's on the nook. it lets you directly manage files akin to a computer, watch what the nook is doing in a task manager, and more! you can see its github HERE :)

  1. plug your rooted nook into your computer.

  2. click HERE to download the newest APK to your nook stuff folder.

  3. open command prompt and call up the android debug bridge like i taught you in the main tutorial (that's right... pop quiz :P), and use it to connect to your nook again.

  4. type, without the quotes and brackets, "adb install [replace this with the folder path to the APK, file name included]" and hit enter. it should install super quick!

  5. eject your nook from your computer and push the "home" button, and tap "library" or "shop." you'll get the option to run the original software for that button, or ReLaunchX. you can even save that choice using the checkbox so you don't have to pick it every time (you can long press on the button you bound ReLaunchX to if you want to unbind it).

  6. run ReLaunchX and get exploring!

from there, using PDFs, ePubs, and more files is simply a matter of plugging the nook into your computer, opening its file structure in file explorer, and dragging the files to the folder inside it you want to use! i hope this was fun and/or informative for you. i really enjoyed writing it up (twice) and am already having a blast reading on my rooted NST. i'll write more about it in the future if i find anything extra silly or cool to do with it, and i'll write up a similar updated guide about rooting my nook color after i do it! it'll hopefully be just as easy as this one... knock on wood... :P catch ya later!

⦁ https://nookdevs.com/NookTouch_Rooting ⦁ https://code.google.com/archive/p/nst-recovery/downloads ⦁ https://www.7-zip.org/ ⦁ https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/ ⦁ https://developer.android.com/tools/releases/platform-tools ⦁ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.gacode.relaunchx/

further reading

⦁ https://help.barnesandnoble.com/hc/en-us/sections/26336578607131 ⦁ https://nookdevs.com/Application_Directory ⦁ https://github.com/Leszek111/ReLaunchX