NWA50AX bricked - Recovery sticking block

Installing and Using OpenWrt
5

Fixed.

For those reading for the first time or solution hunting for a similar problem this may help you. It will bore everyone else. You've been warned! :wink:

Initial problem:

Following this guide was unable to perform this step:

Upon booting, set the booted image to the correct slot:

$ zyxel-bootconfig /dev/mtd10 get-status
$ zyxel-bootconfig /dev/mtd10 set-image-status 0 valid
$ zyxel-bootconfig /dev/mtd10 set-active-image 0

due to zyxel-bootconfig being unavailable to me.

Fix:

I downloaded the original KERNEL (initramfs) from:

firmware Selector

as directed by the guide. This did not contain zyxel-bootconfig or at least I was unable to access it from the terminal.

The custom build did include zyxel-bootconfig (the last one listed) and gave me a FACTORY and SYSUPGRADE bin but no KERNEL bin as outputs.

*May be possible to get a purely KERNEL bin with more knowledge than I have of the required package makeup.

So I was now armed with a SYSUPGRADE custom bin which included the zyxel-bootconfig package and a bootable KERNEL bin without zyxel-bootconfig

  • Loaded the initramfs per guide

  • Entered Failsafe Mode

  • Accessed Luci via 192.168.1.1.

  • Uploaded custom SYSUPGRADE firmware containing zyxel-bootconfig (no warnings present)

  • Rebooted to into original KERNEL bin. I NOW had the option to interrogate zyxel-bootconfig.

  • Performed this step:

$ zyxel-bootconfig /dev/mtdblock9 get-status
$ zyxel-bootconfig /dev/mtdblock9 set-image-status 0 valid
$ zyxel-bootconfig /dev/mtdblock9 set-active-image 0
  • Rebooted
  • Everything now accessible as a clean slate via LuCi at 192.168.1.1

People can pick holes in this as they please to teach me the error of my thinking/explain my luck. It'll be an education.

Or it can be a post that's buried forever. Hope it helps someone and thanks for helping me on here.

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