Techyes

It's frustrating when you plug your Kindle Fire HD into your computer and you have… nothing. The device shows up on your Windows 7 system, but you can't get to the files within. What are you doing wrong? If you want to drop some photos onto your device to share with friends keep reading.

If you're not seeing a message on the Kindle about you possibly needing special software to access the files on the device then your device is probable still locked so there's no way to actually see the contents of the Kindle Fire itself.

The question becomes "how do you set up your Kindle so it's locked and requires a password". There is a step by step guide on how to enable a security password and unlock it on your Kindle Fire HD at the end of this article.

To access the files, and have the device show up on your Win7 system, plug it in, then unlock it.

Otherwise, here's what happens...
You plug in the Kindle Fire to your PC and it pops up a standard external drive addition window:




"Open device to view files" is reasonable but the screen's blank, as if the device is empty.
Go through "Computer" and file explorer and again, the Kindle shows up as expected:



But if you try to look inside, it's completely empty.

On the device itself, you see an advertisement for an Intel Ultrabook and a lock icon on the right:




There's the problem! Unlock the device as shown at the end of this article while it's still plugged in and you can view the contents of the "Kindle" device in Windows:



Note that the 16GB Fire HD actually only has 12.6GB free. That's a lot of space reserved for system files and data!
At this point you can double click on the internal storage and see what's on the device itself: (After following directions on “How to Password Protect Your Kindle Fire HD”)



To add photos, simply drag and drop them from your PC onto the "Pictures" folder.
Always make sure any devices you hook up to your Win PC are unlocked before you try to access them from the PC itself.

How to Password Protect Your Kindle Fire HD and Unlock It

(In this example the advertisements have been removed. You can do this too as shown later)

Your credit card is tied to your Amazon account so you can purchase content from its store easily on the Kindle Fire HD. It’s important to password protect the Lock Screen to secure your device. The security measure is not enabled by default. Here’s how to add a PIN code to the Lock Screen.

Swipe from the top of the screen down to bring up the notifications screen and tap “More”.



On the next screen scroll down and tap “Security”.



On the Security screen tap “Lock Screen Password to On”.



Then type in a numeric PIN twice. It needs to be at least four digits, and there doesn’t seem to be a max, so you can make it even more secure if you want. Tap “Done”, then close out of Settings.



Now whenever you turn on your Fire HD, you’ll need to enter the PIN you created to activate it.



If you’re wondering why there aren’t any advertisements on the Lock Screen, they have been disabled. Here’s how you can disable them too: (A fee is involved)

How to Disable Ads on Kindle Fire HD

If you recently purchased a new Amazon Kindle Fire HD, you may not like the special offer ads it displays on the Lock Screen. Amazon did this to subsidize the cost of the devices. After some “flip-flopping” the company finally decided that users can opt-out of the ads with a one time charge of $15.



Not only do ads appear on the Lock Screen, but they pop up in different places throughout the interface. Here’s a text ad on the home screen (of course it’s for Amazon)



It’s not obvious how to pay the fee for an ad free Kindle though. You can’t do it from the device. Instead you need to go to Amazon’s site and log in to your account.

After logging in, click “Manage Your Devices” under the “Your Kindle Account” section on the left side of the screen.



Then under “Registered Kindles”, you’ll see a list of the device(s) you own. Under the Special Offers column, click the “Edit” link next to Subscribed.



Then click to unsubscribe. Remember your credit card will be charged $15 to remove the Special Offers, but it’s a one time fee.



After you’ve unsubscribed from the special offer ads, turn on your device and make sure it’s connected to WiFi. Now your Lock Screen is ad free and will display random high quality backgrounds like it does on the first Kindle Fire.



The text ads that appeared on the Home Screen are gone too.



Swipe from the top of the screen down to see your Notifications. One will say you’re device has been removed from Special Offers.



While the Lock Screen and various text ads are removed from your tablet, you’ll still see recommendations from other customers.



After opting out of the ads the interface is a lot cleaner and nicer to use.

Share this info with your friends.