Hello everyone, this is my first post here, and I'm having unfortunate trouble.
I really don't understand how to install this, it shouldn't be this complicated. I used the following instructions: TD-W8970 and have a telnet terminal opened through PuTTY. Okay.. but what do I do now? There are literally no instructions after this. What do I do after this?
There's no instructions on how to install it via telnet after you successfully get a telnet line open with the router. Someone please help me! 
I couldn’t find anywhere an example of what steps should be done next after getting a telnet connection into the device. One poor guy used cat to copy the firmware and it was stuffed.
Everyone else seems to have used serial method (including the guy who initially broke his)
I’d suggest giving it a few more hours if still no go, I’d go buy another router that is known to work (easily) from another vendor.
So I'd need to solder then? Great. Well, unless anyone knows what to do once you establish a telnet session with this router, I'll probably end up throwing it away.
Looking at the history of that device it’s a pity the manufacturer felt a need to be so difficult... Suggest avoiding them in future
Take a look at this thread for some good options:
this was my first device that i installed openwrt. and i did it without opening the case (Web Interface Hack),long ago'. if i remember correct you need create a specific name of the wifi network for the injection to work.
https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/td-w8970_v1
That's just it though, how do I inject the firmware in the first place? It lists how to setup the wifi network, but not how to do the injection at all. I already have the wifi network set to: telnetd -p 1023 -l login and I have a telnet session open with it, but there are no instructions what to do next.
Do you remember them?
you need the encrypter/decrypter tool, read the the wiki , make sure the tplink firmware version is reported as working with this approach.
I've already done that though. The instructions on the wiki mean nothing because the tool only decrypts and encrypts the conf.bin file. It doesn't do anything other than allowing a telnet session to be created. How did you flash the firmware if this is all it does?
The very last step says "You are ready to go and have access to linux shell." But that's it. What do I do from there? All it did was give me telnet access.
you need edit the saved decrypted conf.xml.
add the xml tag <Description val="TD-W8970 v1telnetd -p 1023 -l login" /> after the xml node SerialNumber and save it.
I've already done that, and uploaded it to the router. All that does is give you telnet access, it doesn't flash the firmware.
Should I try to flash the firmware by doing the upgrade option in the routers settings after this?
i can't really remember after that and i'm not sure if you can flash it via web.
Did you flash the firmware by telnet?
i can't remember, but i'll try that first
The instructions on the wiki have the commands for telnet flashing missing. I don't know what I am supposed to enter.
read this , the web hack solution . you need a usb drive
https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/td-w9980
Those instructions are not clear and outdated, especially the USB ones (they're for Linux, like the dd command). What commands do I enter into the telnet session?
cat /var/usbdisk/sda1/td-w8970/openwrt-lantiq-xrx200-TDW8970-sysupgrade.bin> /dev/mtdblock1
cat /var/usbdisk/sda1/td-w8970/openwrt-lantiq-xrx200-TDW8970-sysupgrade-1.bin > /dev/mtdblock2
this is for upgrade
backup your original partition first
I am not using Linux and those commands aren't for the current file "openwrt-18.06.5-lantiq-xrx200-tplink_tdw8970-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin"