I have been fighting this issue since my brother gave me his Nook because it never worked. First thing I encountered was that the battery was 'puffy' so I disposed of it and got a new battery. It still didn't start, even after all the advice on holding this button and that button down. I was going to throw it away when I looked closely at the battery in it's compartment. I saw that there was some wiggle room between the battery and the contacts even though the contacts still made battery contact. I unscrewed the battery hold down, took a sliver of a post it note and folded it over 4 times that with tweezers held it in place next to the screw behind the battery to act like a shim, pushing the battery towards the contact pins then screwed it back down. The Nook started like a champ with just a quick touch of the power button, like it's supposed to do. All updates done and ready to use. Total cost? The cost of replacing a bad battery, which you may not even need to do!