A quick & dirty guide to unbrick your Archer C7 V1 or V2, or an Archer C5, when the TFTP recovery isn't working.
Follow this guide to connect via serial. A $5.00 PL2303 adapter will do.
Download a working OpenWrt image, or a TP-Link stock image with the bootloader stripped(!)
Run a TFTP server such as TFTPD32 on 192.168.1.100, and make sure the firmware image is in the TFTP folder.
Now, you should already be connected via serial. Use a terminal such as PuTTY and connect it to your router, using the settings from the guide I linked.
Press the power button on your router, and repeatedly press "tpl" to halt the boot.
You should now be at the console. If you can read but can't write any commands, make sure flow control is off.
Finally, run these commands.
tftp 0x81000000 [name of your firmware file].bin
erase 0x9f020000 +f80000
cp.b 0x81000000 0x9f020000 0xf80000
The moment of truth:
reset
Now, your router should reboot and you should see everything start up as normal. Congratulations, you've just unbricked your TP-Link router!
(Last edited by bmccoy11 on 6 May 2015, 02:00)
