Bricked My Fon While Rebooting!

[Will A]

EDIT: I can telnet into redboot when the ethernet is plugged in and using an IP of 192.168.1.166. Read further posts for more updates!

Hey guys. Long time watcher/reader, first time poster.

Refrence: Using OS X 10.6.4, Black Macbook 3.1 (all linux commands worked fine), Airport Extreme (Broadcom BCM4328 chipset)

I just got my Fon 2100 off eBay and was delighted to find the firmware was okay and I didn't have to downgrade! So I followed Darren's guide (http://www.hak5.org/w/index.php/Fon_Jasager_Install) and followed all the steps up to 10. On step 10, after copying out.hex back and running the command, I rebooted. During the reboot, I made the mistake of trying to press a few keys to see if the rebooting was done. I then got an error saying something along the lines of "connection timed out". This happened on step 9 during the reboot as well, so I didn't worry (on step 9, I made the same error. I just turned my wireless off and on again, ssh'd in then rebooted again. Everything was fine.)

This time, however, when turning the wireless off and on again, the "MyPlace" SSID didn't show up. I checked the Fon, and the green light under "WLAN" is off. Only the "Power" light is on. I tried unplugging it and using the reset button, no avail. I tried using the Ethernet cable to connect to it, no avail. No SSID, no WLAN light. :(

So, in about an hour, I turned my happy Fonera router into a plastic paperweight.

Has anyone experienced this, or know how to fix it? Any ideas or theories are welcome.

Thanks a lot,

Will

pic related. It's the little Fon that could(n't)

UPDATE 1:

If I change my ethernet ip to 192.168.1.166, and plug the Fon's ethernet cable into my computer, I am able to telnet into redboot! Here is a picture of it: http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/6605/redbootaccess.png

From what I've read, I possibly could be able to flash some working firmware on here (from redboot through telnet on ethernet as that's the only way I can currently access it).

My main resource currently is this, starting at where he has telnet redboot access, "Ok, here we go!" using my ethernet connection instead of his serial connection. All (I think) that matters is that we can telnet into redboot.

So, what firmware should I put on it? Anyone ever done this before? Good thing we still have some hope!

Edited September 9, 2010 by Will A

[Acetolyne]

If you can get redboot access you can simply start over however if you cant then you need to move to a serial cable to debrick it Digi has a good tutorial on making a cheap one on his site check it out if your gonna need the serial cable http://www.digininja.org/fon_serial/

hope you can get it back up as this is a real fun project and has many benifits.

Let us know how things progress

Edited September 9, 2010 by ¿~Acet•lyne~? ™

[Will A]

If you can get redboot access you can simply start over however if you cant then you need to move to a serial cable to debrick it Digi has a good tutorial on making a cheap one on his site check it out if your gonna need the serial cable http://www.digininja.org/fon_serial/

hope you can get it back up as this is a real fun project and has many benifits.

Let us know how things progress

Thanks for the reply!

If I change my ethernet ip to 192.168.1.166, and plug the Fon's ethernet cable into my computer, I am able to telnet into redboot! Here is a picture of it: http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/6605/redbootaccess.png

From what I've read, I possibly could be able to flash some working firmware on here (from redboot through telnet on ethernet as that's the only way I can currently access it).

My main resource currently is this, starting at where he has telnet redboot access, "Ok, here we go!" using my ethernet connection instead of his serial connection. All (I think) that matters is that we can telnet into redboot.

So, what firmware should I put on it? Anyone ever done this before? Good thing we still have some hope!

[digininja]

I used to do it all the time, just use my walk through and the latest firmware from my site. You can stop when you get to this line

root@desktop interceptor # ls *ipk

http://www.digininja.org/interceptor/install_walkthrough.php

[Will A]

I used to do it all the time, just use my walk through and the latest firmware from my site. You can stop when you get to this line

root@desktop interceptor # ls *ipk

http://www.digininja.org/interceptor/install_walkthrough.php

Ah, I wish I'd read this earlier! I tried to follow your setup guide on the Jasager page, but I missed the first part about having to use your redboot.pl file, needless to say many things went wrong, and I no longer have telnet redboot access. <_<

I guess I'll have to go and make a serial cable to fix this thing...

Thanks for the reply, though. I'll bookmark that in my Fonera folder, incase I ever run into this again.

[digininja]

It is very hard to kill redboot, are you sure you broke it? I've done lots of things to my Fons and never managed to lock myself out of redboot unless I changed the IP address it was listening on and then forgot it.

[Will A]

It is very hard to kill redboot, are you sure you broke it? I've done lots of things to my Fons and never managed to lock myself out of redboot unless I changed the IP address it was listening on and then forgot it.

I'm pretty sure of it. I telneted into redboot and followed the commands to replace it with the redboot.pl from your site, but I never downloaded the redboot.pl. It asked me if I was sure I wanted to change it, and I said yes. I just let it sit there for about half an hour, and stopped it. I'm pretty sure I screwed it up sometime while doing the above. (I also tried flashing it with fon flash while I still had redboot, ran into some problems.)

I'll definitely turn it back on and play around with it though, who knows maybe redboot is still there..

[digininja]

I'm not sure what you've done but what you describe doesn't make sense. You don't replace redboot onto the device with redboot.pl, that is a script to allow you to access redboot from the command line, without it a lot of telnet clients won't allow you to send the control C needed to access redboot. What client did you use and how did you send the ctrl-C?

You won't be able to use Fon Flash while the device is powered on, it checks for the device appearing and then sends the ctrl-C to access it, if the device is on then it never gets the opportunity.