Fried My USR Broadband Router 8000-02A

Routinely I do a firmware upgrade to my USR (U.S. Robotics) Broadband
Router 8000-02A to the v2.7 firmware bin file I have. I do this about
once a week and they warn you not to do anything until this is complete
after 20 seconds. This has worked fine except in some cases where I had
to reset the device manually with a little button on the side. The
procedure for that reset is that you pull the power out, push the
reset, put the power in, and wait until the amber system LED begins to
flash. Then, let go the reset button.

Unfortunately last night the browser timed out and the device went
dead.

I took the device apart to see if there were removable anything like
CMOS battery, chip, or jumpers. I looked to see if the device had DIP
switches. Nothing was there. This is a closed system and so I gingerly
put it back together and booted it again.

The device seems to respond to ping but doesn't seem to let a browser
connect to its browser address on 192.168.123.254.

I tried using the old telnet trick "telnet 192.168.123.254 80" and then
you usually see a cleared screen and you can type "GET /" to see the
default page. Unfortunately this didn't even get to the point of a
cleared screen, which means the port is dead. I have Linux and thought
it was my local firewall, so I temporarily shut my local firewall
completely down and tried again. Nope -- didn't work.

I ensured I was on DHCP because I was previously on static IP. I
repeated all this and it still failed.

I then connected a Win98 laptop to it with DHCP and it failed to get an
IP address.

I tried pushing the reset button with varying times before I depressed
it after putting power into the device, and still no connectivity.

I tried to connect to its serial COM port and see if I could hack into
it with some kind of console tty override, but that failed too.

The thing appears beyond dead, unrecoverable.

So, if you have a way that I can hack into this device to try to
recover or replace the OS again, please let me know.

The way I'm writing you now (just so you know) is that I'm connecting
LIVE on the Internet with nothing but me and a single firewall script
on Linux (iptables-based). It's a fairly solid thing, but I would
rather be on two firewalls instead of one. I want my beloved USR
8000-02A back. I miss it so much.

Please help -- desperate. My wife says I we're so strapped on bills
right now that I can't even afford to get another one or a refurb one.
I can't even afford the cash to get the manufacturer to ship me an old
refurb replacement.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Routinely I do a firmware upgrade to my USR (U.S. Robotics) Broadband
> Router 8000-02A to the v2.7 firmware bin file I have. I do this about
> once a week and they warn you not to do anything until this is complete
> after 20 seconds. This has worked fine except in some cases where I had
> to reset the device manually with a little button on the side. The
> procedure for that reset is that you pull the power out, push the
> reset, put the power in, and wait until the amber system LED begins to
> flash. Then, let go the reset button.
>
> Unfortunately last night the browser timed out and the device went
> dead.
>
> I took the device apart to see if there were removable anything like
> CMOS battery, chip, or jumpers. I looked to see if the device had DIP
> switches. Nothing was there. This is a closed system and so I gingerly
> put it back together and booted it again.
>
> The device seems to respond to ping but doesn't seem to let a browser
> connect to its browser address on 192.168.123.254.
>
> I tried using the old telnet trick "telnet 192.168.123.254 80" and then
> you usually see a cleared screen and you can type "GET /" to see the
> default page. Unfortunately this didn't even get to the point of a
> cleared screen, which means the port is dead. I have Linux and thought
> it was my local firewall, so I temporarily shut my local firewall
> completely down and tried again. Nope -- didn't work.
>
> I ensured I was on DHCP because I was previously on static IP. I
> repeated all this and it still failed.
>
> I then connected a Win98 laptop to it with DHCP and it failed to get an
> IP address.
>
> I tried pushing the reset button with varying times before I depressed
> it after putting power into the device, and still no connectivity.
>
> I tried to connect to its serial COM port and see if I could hack into
> it with some kind of console tty override, but that failed too.
>
> The thing appears beyond dead, unrecoverable.
>
> So, if you have a way that I can hack into this device to try to
> recover or replace the OS again, please let me know.
>
> The way I'm writing you now (just so you know) is that I'm connecting
> LIVE on the Internet with nothing but me and a single firewall script
> on Linux (iptables-based). It's a fairly solid thing, but I would
> rather be on two firewalls instead of one. I want my beloved USR
> 8000-02A back. I miss it so much.
>
> Please help -- desperate. My wife says I we're so strapped on bills
> right now that I can't even afford to get another one or a refurb one.
> I can't even afford the cash to get the manufacturer to ship me an old
> refurb replacement.

This issue is now resolved here:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...50beec0?hl=en&