You wanted a tablet device and bought a Kindle Fire HD 8. You have been enjoying it, but you have suddenly run into a problem: your Fire HD 8 won’t start anymore. You have important data and apps on the tablet and worry about losing them. So, what do you do if your Fire HD 8 won’t turn on?

Keep on reading to learn more about how you can troubleshoot this problem if it happens to your Fire HD 8 and how to keep your data safe in the event of permanent failure of your tablet.

Why Won’t My Kindle Fire HD 8 Turn On?

First, you want to ensure that your Fire HD 8 is charging and has enough charge to turn on. It seems like a simple fix, but sometimes, a faulty charging cable or wall wart with a bad connection can cause your device not to charge properly. It’s always worth it to check.

  • Charge the Fire HD 8Restart once charging is complete by holding down the power buttonSwitch from the wall adapter to USB charging from a computer or laptop to test the charging cable

Before charging, hold down the Power button for a few seconds to ensure that it is off and not just in sleep mode. When you plug the charger into an outlet, a light will appear on the tablet if it starts charging. Let it charge up for around 3 hours, and then attempt to turn the tablet on.

The light changes from red to green as the device charges. If the light is still red after many hours, disconnect it from the wall outlet and plug the charging cable into a USB port of a computer or laptop. If it comes on, your wall wart is likely broken and needs to be replaced. If it doesn’t come on, your charging cable might be faulty. Try charging with an alternate cable.

What if My Kindle is Still Unresponsive With a Charge?

Sometimes, the device can become unresponsive even when there is some charge left in the battery, in which case the light will still be green. Hold the Power button for 40 seconds to force a reboot and check the battery level to charge it as needed.

What If My Kindle’s Charger Port Is Damaged?

All these fixes are for possible hardware issues. If none of them worked for you, your tablet might have problems with its software. In that case, it might be better to perform a factory reset. There are two types: the soft reset will restore factory default settings but leave your data untouched; the hard reset will wipe all data and settings you stored in the device.

How Do I Soft Reset My Fire HD 8?

To perform a soft reset on the Fire HD 8: 

  • Press and hold both the Volume Down and Power buttonsKeep pressing them for 10 seconds Turn it ON again after some seconds

How Do You Do A Hard Reset On A Kindle Fire?

Modern electronics can be quite temperamental and frustrating; sometimes, a simple reset won’t get the job done. A hard reset might be necessary if your Fire HD 8 wasn’t fixed by a simple soft reset. A hard reset will set your Fire HD 8 back to factory settings and it will operate like you just pulled it out of the box. You will lose all your data with a hard reset.

  • Press and hold the “Power” and “Volume Down” buttons The tablet should turn on and the recovery screen appears. Toggle the selected option to “wipe data/factory reset” Press the Power button Select the Yes option on the next screenConfirm to begin the reset.

Ideally, you should have at least 30% of charging left in your Fire HD 8 before attempting a factory reset.

How Do I Force Restart My Fire Tablet 8?

Sometimes when you hit the power button on a Fire HD 8, it seems like it restarted when all it really did was go to sleep and wake back up. To be absolutely certain that your Fire HD 8 is restarting you should do a forced restart on it.

  • Press and hold the Power button for 30 seconds or until it turns off completely. Wait for 5 secondsPress the Power button to turn the Fire HD 8 back on

You will notice that a pop-up appears a few seconds after holding the Power button. For a forced restart, you have to ignore this pop-up and keep holding the button in place until the screen goes black.

Conclusion

Modern smart devices are full of features that run continuously in the background and drain the battery. Most of the time, your tablet’s battery will die because of apps running in the background or WiFi left on for a long time.

Always ensure you charge the Fire HD 8 as soon as it reports a low battery level and do not leave apps running unnecessarily. Do not use your tablet in extreme temperatures, as this can significantly affect the battery performance.