Thanks, with this I was able to gather a bit more info.
I was unable to run opkg update && opkg install cfdisk since there is no internet connection.
To get the package updates I attempted the solution provided in Package download failed - #3 by jaromanda but I think ultimately I just do not have internet access.
So I installed some packages offline following the recommendations from: Install Packages While Offline?
The packages I needed were at https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/packages/arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4/base/
I then switched my terminal to ~/User/Downloads (could be a different route depending on your system, maybe ~/Downloads) and ran the following to copy each of the downloaded packages required:
scp cfdisk_2.38.1-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/ && \
scp libncurses6_6.4-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/ && \
scp libfdisk1_2.38.1-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/ && \
scp libmount1_2.38.1-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/ && \
scp terminfo_6.4-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/
And I followed this by installing the packages:
ssh root@192.168.1.1 -C "opkg install /tmp/terminfo_6.4-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk && \
opkg install /tmp/libncurses6_6.4-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk && \
opkg install /tmp/libfdisk1_2.38.1-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk && \
opkg install /tmp/libfdisk1_2.38.1-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk && \
opkg install /tmp/libmount1_2.38.1-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk && \
opkg install /tmp/cfdisk_2.38.1-2_arm_cortex-a15_neon-vfpv4.ipk"
Then I could ssh into the router and use the cfdisk utility.
user@computer:~/User/Downloads$ ssh root@192.168.1.1
root@OpenWrt:~# cfdisk /dev/mmcblk0
root@OpenWrt:~# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 4.3M 4.3M 0 100% /rom
tmpfs 484.7M 20.8M 463.9M 4% /tmp
/dev/sda3 3.5G 282.4M 3.2G 8% /overlay
overlayfs:/overlay 3.5G 282.4M 3.2G 8% /
tmpfs 512.0K 0 512.0K 0% /dev
root@OpenWrt:~# cfdisk /dev/mmcblk0
It is interesting that for row 3 I get /dev/sda3 rather than /dev/mmcblk0p3. And the results for cfdisk are as follows:
The good thing is that the cfdisk installation persists for each reboot. However, once I zero /dev/mmcblk0 that space is completely destroyed and a reset (with the reset button) is required to restore that space which of course removes the installed packages.
This is the output I get as I attempt to proceed:
user@computer:~/User/Downloads$ scp openwrt-ipq806x-chromium-tplink_onhub-squashfs-factory.bin root@192.168.1.1:/tmp/
openwrt-ipq806x-chromium-tplink_onhub-squashfs-factory.bin
user@computer:~/User/Downloads$ ssh root@192.168.1.1 -C "dd if=/dev/zero bs=512 seek=7552991 of=/dev/mmcblk0 count=33 && \
> dd if=/tmp/openwrt-ipq806x-chromium-tplink_onhub-squashfs-factory.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M"
33+0 records in
33+0 records out
dd: error writing '/dev/mmcblk0': I/O error
20+1 records in
20+0 records out
Then I ssh in to check:
root@OpenWrt:~# cfdisk /dev/mmcblk0
cfdisk: cannot open /dev/mmcblk0: I/O error
Attempt to zero the eMMC
root@OpenWrt:~# dd if=/dev/zero bs=512 seek=7552991 of=/dev/mmcblk0 count=33
dd: error writing '/dev/mmcblk0': I/O error
1+0 records in
0+0 records out
root@OpenWrt:~# dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M of=/dev/mmcblk0
dd: error writing '/dev/mmcblk0': No space left on device
3689+0 records in
3688+0 records out
At this point, that location is completely gone. Trying again will just return the I/O error message. Is there anything else I can try to break out of this loop? Is there something different with my device storage somehow, maybe do something with /dev/sda3 instead.
A lot of posts discuss the Asus model, I would be curious to know if any of the TP-Link owners had to configure anything differently, also would be nice if I could use the internet connection in USB mode for package update, not sure if that is possible with some config changes.