Unbricking Belkin rt3200

Using serial recovery I was able to completely boot up the router. (Wifi and luci while regular on and of switch dose nothing)
The guide in documentation says use TFTP to flash preloader and go from there but since but time to trigger bootloader options is slower than I manage to launch putty, its mid way booting before I see it.

Can I flash installer uploading via luci?
This one?
https://github.com/dangowrt/owrt-ubi-installer/releases/download/v1.1.3/openwrt-mediatek-mt7622-linksys_e8450-ubi-initramfs-recovery-installer.itb
And then use sysupgrade image?
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/24.10.0/targets/mediatek/mt7622/openwrt-24.10.0-mediatek-mt7622-linksys_e8450-ubi-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb
Or should I just flash sysupgrade image?

I am a little cautious now because I do not want to brick it harder

EDIT:

grep "(release)" /dev/mtd0ro
v2.9.0(release):OpenWrt v2023-10-13-0ea67d76-1 (mt7622-snand-ubi-1ddr)

Assuming you're using serial, you can have puTTY up and running before you even power on the router.

Have you read all the instructions and guidance here:
https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/e8450?s[]=linksys&s[]=e8450&s[]=ubi

Hold off on this... use 23.05.5 if you're doing this right now. 24.10.0 has not yet officially been released (it'll probably be soon, though). The reason to avoid it at the moment is that, until it is officially announced, we don't know if there could be any specific issues with the build.

In this case I would go with 24.10~, because of the partitioning changes.

Not in my experience. If the com port is claimed by putty then mtk_uartboot can not establish the connection because only one thing can be connected to UART at same time.

I also looked over the documentation and in the section about OKD i found a reference to flashing still booting router.
https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/e8450?s[]=linksys&s[]=e8450&s[]=ubi#recovery_from_live_openwrt_mainmaster_snapshot_with_fip_in_ubi_layout
In it refers to optional step of reflashing fip and instructions in this forum post:

I am not sure if all those steps are strictly needed but this seams like good path for me to follow.

I was a little foolish earlier and used the beta version that messes with UBI partitions, so I think I should be using 24.x partitions are setup for it.

correct, if you're using mtk_uartboot, you temp need to kill the serial terminal app.

Success! Router now boots on flipping the power on button. Not sure if OKD will not return in the future but for now it seams stable enough.

Here is the processes I followed:

  1. Boot the router up by using serial recovery like described the docs:
    https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/e8450#recovery_steps
    Just let it complete the boot sequence to get the full OS loaded up instead of trying to flash new firmware over TFTP.
    (Small fix: for powershell symbol to make commands execute sequntially is ; not &&)
  2. I used instructions for routers that still boot up with UBI layout
    https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/e8450#recovery_from_live_openwrt_mainmaster_snapshot_with_fip_in_ubi_layout
    Now testing on 24.10 snaphot will see if it stable and move to using the device.

P.S. These issues should occur much less for new users because UBI installer just got a new stable version: https://github.com/dangowrt/owrt-ubi-installer/releases/tag/v1.1.4

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