Gargoyle Forum

Hi
after making a change to firewall restrictions my WRT1900ACS has refused to boot. I connected the serial cable and can connect but the boot sequence fails immediately after the Autoboot countdown so I cant get to the failsafe prompt to entre failsafe node.

I have tried setting ip variables and loading an image over TFTP but it complains that various env variables aren't set - it looks like the boot files have been damaged.

Does anyone have any ideas how to recover from this situation? I only bought the router so I could start using Gargoyle again so I'd really like to get it recovered if I can.

Rog66 wrote:Hi
after making a change to firewall restrictions my WRT1900ACS has refused to boot. I connected the serial cable and can connect but the boot sequence fails immediately after the Autoboot countdown so I cant get to the failsafe prompt to entre failsafe node.

I have tried setting ip variables and loading an image over TFTP but it complains that various env variables aren't set - it looks like the boot files have been damaged.

Does anyone have any ideas how to recover from this situation? I only bought the router so I could start using Gargoyle again so I'd really like to get it recovered if I can.

I had exactly the same issue, but luckily my router booted from secondary partition.

did it do that automatically or did you have to do something to get it to do that?

Rog66 wrote:did it do that automatically or did you have to do something to get it to do that?

No I don't have to do nothing, because I still got that Gargoyle firmware on primary partition every time when I restarting the router it trying to boot from primary then after 30 second's booting from secondary, have you seen this?
https://github.com/JW0914/Wikis/blob/ma ... covery.pdf

See the openwrt wiki for making it boot from the second partition.
https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wr ... e_recovery

Lantis wrote:See the openwrt wiki for making it boot from the second partition.
https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wr ... e_recovery

What if he flashed from oem straight to Gargoyle? Has the router got secondary partition? I have read on openwrt forum if you have openwrt on partition mtd5 and you flashing with new firmware then router is installing firmware on mtd7 and other way round, I just cant understand why my and Rog's firmware was dead after changing firewall settings. Any ideas?

Yes. Secondary partition in that case will contain stock linksys firmware.

the switching on/off to boot the second partition didn't work from the moment I loaded Gargoyle ( the same for the reset button). I reported the firewall setting issue when I first loaded Gargoyle but in that instance I was able to run firstboot with a serial cable - now it seems well and truly bricked. I had seen the article re loading the kboot files but these were for the WRT1900AC rather than the S but at this stage I have nothing to lose in trying them so will fire up my Kubuntu VM in the morning and give it a go

I'm inclined to believe you weren't doing it correctly then. Because I've used it a dozen or more times.
Once this week even.

Hope the recovery goes well. Maybe jump on the openwrt forums and go to the 500 page long thread about the 1900AC. Ask someone for the files you're after for your router.

Lantis wrote:I'm inclined to believe you weren't doing it correctly then. Because I've used it a dozen or more times.
Once this week even.

Hope the recovery goes well. Maybe jump on the openwrt forums and go to the 500 page long thread about the 1900AC. Ask someone for the files you're after for your router.

I had to do it couple of times and never managed for the first time

I had seen the article re loading the kboot files but these were for the WRT1900AC rather than the S but at this stage I have nothing to lose in trying them so will fire up my Kubuntu VM in the morning and give it a go

"WRT1900AC v1 only
For other WRT1X00AC/S Series routers, please contact nitroshift"
Send him message on the forum before you start, using wrong uboot you may brick the router irrevocably.