Hello everyone,
I’m reaching out to the community to see if anyone can help us resolve a critical issue with 4 separate BrailleNote Apex units.
The Issue:
All four units display the exact same boot loop behavior:
1 Battery holds a charge and powers on.
2 Screen/display shows: Starting KeySoft (with varying numbers).
3 Moves to: Repairing partition...
4 Ends with: Kernel load error
Since this error occurs on all four devices, it appears to be a corrupt operating system image or partition failure rather than a physical hardware issue.
Why This Matters:
These units belong to visually impaired individuals in Egypt who received them as donations). None of the users have the financial means to purchase newer assistive devices (like the BrailleNote Touch or Evolve), and HumanWare no longer offers support or firmware recovery files for these legacy models. Getting these units functional again would directly impact their daily independence and work.
How You Can Help:
• Does anyone have the OS recovery file / firmware flash package for the BrailleNote Apex saved?
• Do you know the specific procedure or key combination required to reflash or restore the system partition on these units?
• Is there a known workaround or source for legacy HumanWare system utilities?
Any guidance, documentation, or files you could share would be immensely appreciated. Thank you so much for your time and assistance!
By Iconic, 25 July, 2026
Forum
Assistive Technology
Comments
Try all of these
Press and hold space with dots 123 before and during the reset try the same with dots 456 and dots 345
Also try pressing and holding the reset button for 10 seconds
i did
I did all of these, but same results
Sorry if this is obvious, what did the company say when you cont
You’ve probably already asked, and they probably don’t support the device anymore, the only other thing I can think of is getting a replacement battery. The fact that this issue happened to all four of your machines makes me think the battery may not be providing correct voltage. Did the issue start and continue at the same time for all of them?
not same time
THis happens even when am on the charger or on the battery,
Unfortunately, I am not an expert on these.
I had one during school for a while, but I don’t think I can help you out much more. The only thing I can think of is that the solid state drive has failed on all your units, if it took a while for each to fail I’m thinking that’s what it might be. You should be able to call the company on Monday. They are in Pacific standard time.
dragging the os
Is there away that we can drag and drop the system from one working unit to another?
Not that I know of at all.
Operating system image is deeply embedded into the software and hardware, I don’t think it even comes up in the list of files or anything so it could be dragged it dropped
wish to find a solution
Really i wish that we can try to do something for these units
Reddit is the answer.
Finding the right sub Reddit is gonna be the problem. That’s gonna take some googling, but honestly a laptop is gonna do much more for anyone than those units could anymore. What I meant to say is a laptop has more power and more ability to interact with modern applications. Just my opinion, though. I understand these were amazingly expensive and necessary.
using laptop
Totally agree, specially with all apps related to blind users, with screen readers.
but if you are a teacher or book reader.
I think this will be a necessary thing for you.
One Braille display and one good laptop.
The orbit Reader 20 is about $800. A good laptop that will run windows and the screen reader is about $1000. You could, actually if someone could chime in, can you connect multiple displaced to one laptop.
Orbet reader
I love that,
WIsh they will be ok to purchase this
Here is the device
https://www.maxiaids.com/product/orbit-reader-20
You might try posting.
At:
http://forum.audiogames.net
Probably in the Off Topic area. I know people have talked about doing things with older devices before, including Humanware's stuff. You might have better luck there.
audiogames
I will do this,
i sent on the Braillenote mailing list, but still no reply
from i think 10 years, i was having Braille note m-power, and i ha d a problem in replacing batteries, and i got the best thing ever, i knew that i can replace the batteries, and they are just regular charging batteries,
so, hope now, i can find away to skip. this strange thing.
THanks