[nl393a]

Hi all,

My Linksys router used to have OpenWRT on it, then I tried to switch to DD-WRT. Long story short - the kernel on the router is now gone (when I turn on the router, I only get the slow-and-steady-flashing power light). I have tried using the USB-TTL serial cable to no avail.

My question - is there a way to recover the kernel (or to re-install the kernel) so that I could flash the factory firmware. If so, how?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[kernel-panic69]

I'm sure you have these references and all included links handy.

https://forum.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=311117

https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt_ac_series

The second link has information on corrupt bootloader recovery; I presume you meant bootloader and not kernel. I also presume you tried flashing DD-WRT directly from OpenWRT, which does not work ...

[nl393a]

Hi kernel-panic69, thank you for the quick response. Yes, you are correct - I tried to flash DD-WRT straight from OpenWRT - that was when my nightmare started (I messed up one partition, then I promptly proceeded to kill partition 2!)

I guess you're right, it's bootloader, not kernel. I will read up on the link and see if I could rescue my router.

Thank you for the attachments. Will update how it went.

[kernel-panic69]

You may get lucky and it may only just be a matter of serial recovery. Perhaps you were not having any luck with it before and it was just something simple to get it to recover via serial.

[nl393a]

Thank you for following up kernel-panic69. I have repeated the USB-TTL process no less than 10 times. I am quite positive it wasn't a "bad connection" issue.

In attempting to do the "CORRUPT BOOTLOADER RECOVERY", I found out that the UART Boot Files for WRT1900ACv1 is no longer there (got a "404" error). Is the UART Boot Files just a copy of the OEM firmware? Or is it different?

Please advise.

Thanks in advance.

[kernel-panic69]

https://github.com/nitroshift/wrt1900ac-v1-Mamba-bootloader-recovery-files

https://www.google.com/search?q=WRT1900AC+v1+UART+Boot+Files+site:forum.dd-wrt.com

[nl393a]

Wow! Lightning quick response! I will give it a try. Thank you kernel-panic69.

[blkt]

https://github.com/Chadster766/McDebian/wiki/C.-U%E2%80%90Boot-Recovery

http://www.protechs-online.com/downloads/McDebian/u-boot-recovery/WRT1900AC_V1/

https://forum.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=327794 u-boot recovery may not be necessary.

FW_WRT1900AC_1.1.10.187766_prod.img rename to blk-mamba.128mb.img (printenv firmwareName).

Or, for simplicity rename to mamba.img (setenv firmwareName mamba.img). WRT1900AC V1 is Armada XP.

[nl393a]

Thank you blkt. So use this firmware as UART Boot File for corrupt bootloader recovery. Correct?

[nl393a]

Just opened chadster766's U-Boot-Recovery. It appears I will need to use kwboot to load the firmware.

Will let you know how it went.

Thank you blkt and kernel-panic69 for your help.