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Topic: Redboot commands and Flash health

The content of this topic has been archived on 6 May 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Hello,

I had this old fonera 2100 with dd-wrt on it (build 9994) and I was recently playing a little with it. Final idea was to install OpenWRT, but before that I upgraded from dd-wrt 9994 to build 14929 (via web). It completed fine and i was experimenting some wireless settings until suddenly it stopped working.

Now comes the part where I need some help...
Redboot was still working, on static IP 192.168.1.254 port 9000. So, I tryed to recover via telnet.

a) "fis list" showed some partitions, but with no names.
b) After the first "fis init" that I did, the "fis list" does not show anything anymore! Empty! What is supposed to have in the flash after a "fis init" command?

c) A 2nd consequence seems to be that the Redboot configuration is gone! It has no more static IP at 192.168.1.254. I have to use a switch connected to a DHCP server to give the fonera an IP.

d) with "fconfig -l" I confirmed the boot script is gone. But when I try to write a new one, the router goes offline after I hit "y" to write to flash.

e) "fis init" or "fis init -f" do not seem to work: any command that erases or writes to flash, causes instantenous loss of connection of the putty terminal. No ping.

f) I also tried to load and create "linux" or "rootfs" + "vmlinux.bin.l7" (Openwrt/gargoyle/ddwrt) but they never appear after I do "fis list".

The symptom is: After every failed attempt to write, erase or initialiase the flash, I lose ethernet connectivity and have to power down the fonera and try again. I give plenty of time to each operation.

My main questions are:
1. What is supposed to see with "fis list" after we issue "fis init (-f)" ?
2. Can anyone suggest any good commands on Redeboot shell to diagnose the flash? How to confirm this is an hardware failure?
3. Another nice idea would be to load an image and run it without storing in flash, just to check the router, but I don't know how to do that...(load command and "exec" or "go" command?)

(Last edited by pathlost on 22 Nov 2015, 01:29)

This is interesting!
With the router cooled down (unpowered for some time) I could complete the fis init. I would like to be sure about the next step. I want to load openwrt or gargoyle via redboot/ tftp.

Do I need to create anything else besides the rootfs and vmlinux?

RedBoot> fis list
Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point
RedBoot 0xA8000000 0xA8000000 0x00030000 0x00000000
FIS directory 0xA87E0000 0xA87E0000 0x0000F000 0x00000000
RedBoot config 0xA87EF000 0xA87EF000 0x00001000 0x00000000

Also, boot script is not configured:

RedBoot> fconfig -l
Run script at boot: false
Use BOOTP for network configuration: true
Default server IP address: 0.0.0.0
Console baud rate: 9600
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
Network debug at boot time: false

Any advice?

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