W9980 Install via web-interface hack not working

Hi, I followed the guide to hack my W9980 following this link https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/td-w9980#install_openwrt_via_web_interface_hack_without_opening_the_case

The installation seemed fine and everything went as stated in the guide, but after having installed the firmware in mtdblock1 and mtdblock2, I rebooted my router and the web interface doesn't work. I can't connect to 192.168.1.1 anymore, even with telnet. The guide stated that I should have openwrt webinterface after the reboot. Did I miss something? I did the backup on the usb external drive, but without telnet working I can't even restore it.

Which firmware did you use? The Chaos Calmer is pretty old and it would be better to try a newer version.
Also telnet is deprecated, so can you try with SSH instead?
Does ping work?

I used the chaos chalmer since is the latest .image file (and not squashfs .bin file). The guide updated the firmware after the chaos chalmer firmware upload, so I think this is the way. However, ping doesn't work, seems the router doesn't have an IP. I'm pretty sure it's bricked, but I wonder how I can use the backup I made into the usb drive to restore it

My guess is to follow the opposite direction of the commands you used to make the backup.
Do you have a serial interface cable to connect to the router?

I do, I only need some wires to solder which I don't have at the moment. I don't know how to use the mtd0~mtd6 backups using the serial connection though.

I am guessing here:

cat /var/usbdisk/sda1/mtd0 > /dev/mtd0
cat /var/usbdisk/sda1/mtd1 > /dev/mtd1
cat /var/usbdisk/sda1/mtd2 > /dev/mtd2
cat /var/usbdisk/sda1/mtd3 > /dev/mtd3
cat /var/usbdisk/sda1/mtd4 > /dev/mtd4
cat /var/usbdisk/sda1/mtd5 > /dev/mtd5

Don't use cat for binary files, always use dd for binary files

This seems more appropriate
https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/mtd

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Then the device documentation page should be updated too to use dd instead of cat, otherwise it can be misleading.

I finally managed to use some cables and connect through the serial port, installed openwrt using the standard procedure and now it works. Maybe the webinterface method is not very reliable

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