Hi,
I have a serious problem with one of my routers. I performed a firmware upgrade with seems to be a wrong file. It was with official linksys firmware, for WRT55AG V2 (Atheros 5312 / VxWorks platform), matching my router. I'm almost certain that inspite of the name, it was'nt for WRT55AG V2. It can't boot now.
This post is an SOS, as I did many tests so far. I am also willing to exchange the software for something useful and help the community. I don't need the original firmware restored, an opensource fimrware would be nicer. The priority though is de-bricking the device.
I started by soldering a serial port and got this:
Atheros AR5001AP default version 4.0.0.140
Bootloader version 1.03
auto-booting...
Attaching to TFFS... done.
Loading /fl/APIMG1...1470912
Starting at 0x804846e0...
Address load Exception
Exception Program Counter: 0x0ee778c7
Status Register: 0x00000000
Cause Register: 0x10808010
Access Address : 0x0ee778c7
Task: 0x80f9f900 "tBoot"
And boot process starts all over again, every 2 seconds.
I hit ESC to interact with the VxWorks bootloader and could point the boot device to Ethernert port(ae0) instead of Flash (TFFS). Sending via tftp hasn't worked at all. It was suposed to, there is even a flag to do so, which I don't see any effect when activated. The only thinh I see when pointing the device to boot from "ae0" is my firewall warning of port 514 TCP being accessed. Ok, this is RSH, so I installed an RSHd daemon /server and I put the original (good) firmware file on same directory.
I see comand "cat <firmware_file>" being executed. I had to install cygwin to have command "cat" on my windows PC and finally on the serial console connected to the bricked WRT55AG I see:
auto-booting...
Attached TCP/IP interface to ae0.
Attaching network interface lo0... done.
Loading... Erroneous header read
Error loading file: errno = 0x610001.
This error is documented here:
http://wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Har … ear/WGT624
I executed the command that is advised in that page
$ dd if=510APB_1121ETSI.img of=tftp.img skip=116 bs=1
I had to change 52 to 116 since my firmware file has 116 bytes until the ".ELF" ascii header in the firmware.
Then the comand "file <firmware_file> outputs: ELF 32-bit MSB executable, MIPS, MIPS-II version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, stripped
I thought I had my good fimrware file all set to send by RSH to the WRT55AG, so I booted once again and got this:
Atheros AR5001AP default version 4.0.0.140
Bootloader version 1.03
auto-booting...
Attached TCP/IP interface to ae0.
Attaching network interface lo0... done.
Loading... Size is incorrect
Error loading file: errno = 0x610001.
Can't load boot file!!
And that's where I am now. I am willing to try another firmware, but my problem is that:
1 - I don't know how to change this bootloader to "Redboot"
2 - I dont' know if the JTAG works ok with this router. I did't find any info about anyone sucessfuly unbricking /changing firmware on the WRT55AG (v2) via JTAG.
So, if you know what's wrong with my current file via RSH, can point me in the right direction to install Redboot or can help me with the JTAG solution (to any firmware) I would appreciate very much that you post a reply to this topic.
Many thanks
Pathlost
(Last edited by pathlost on 16 Dec 2008, 02:05)