Bricked Cloudbox - No IP , No U-Boot

[soladzur]

Hi All
Having a cloudbox (white) with 3Tb disk. Several years ago the disk started to crash with lot of bad blocks so the device was not in use.
And now I've decided to update the firmware to fvdw-sl
First I've tried with an old Disk and went with installing new firmware (Kirkwood-171 - cloudbox). the installation process failed (most probably due to bad blocks). and then I made reboot -f.
And that's it. The device stopped to receive an IP from DHCP. The Mac-address is not appearing in ARP anymore.
Tried contacting directly to the laptop (192.168.1.148 on the laptop) but no chance. nothing in ARP.
U-boot is stuck on "waiting for U-boot".

Looks like I've bricked the device. I do have my USB-TTL cable, but I don't find how to use that in that case.

I'm sure this was on the forum but I'm failing to find. Please help?

[fvdw]

You cannot brick it unless you flashed (a wrong) uboot image. Did you do that?
Or if you short circuit it.

To see if uboot still respond, remove the disk and try to upload the standalone kernel using fvdw-sl console.
Be sure to use wired lan connection on your pc and disabled wireless lan connector on your pc if you have one.

About serial connection se here some info https://plugout.net/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1832

[soladzur]

You cannot brick it unless you flashed (a wrong) uboot image. Did you do that?
Or if you short circuit it.

To see if uboot still respond, remove the disk and try to upload the standalone kernel using fvdw-sl console.
Be sure to use wired lan connection on your pc and disabled wireless lan connector on your pc if you have one.

About serial connection se here some info https://plugout.net/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1832

No, I Didn't flash the u-boot. I've manipulated with the disk with fdisk command. tried to change from GPT to MBR and back (don't ask why :).
In order to upload standalone kernel I need U-boot to react somehow. But it doesn't. It simply stopped receiving the IP from DHCP. And I've ready that DHCP is not actually needed.
I've wrote 192.168.1.148 (or 192.168.0.148), disabled all the ports. Selected 192.168.1.252 in the console menu as a target IP of the device. Connected it via ethernet directly to the PC. and no change.
the unfortunate thing - nothing is happening in arp table as well. Firewall is off. :(

Thanks for the link for USB. studying!

[soladzur]

You cannot brick it unless you flashed (a wrong) uboot image. Did you do that?
Or if you short circuit it.

To see if uboot still respond, remove the disk and try to upload the standalone kernel using fvdw-sl console.
Be sure to use wired lan connection on your pc and disabled wireless lan connector on your pc if you have one.

About serial connection se here some info https://plugout.net/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1832

Ok, I see now how to connect USB physically. But what are the steps to unbrick the device using the USB serial connection? I believe the console won't help us and some serial telnet connection is needed?

[fvdw]

If you connect the serial interface correctly and use a program like putty with correct com port settings you can open a terminal window to look at output of the serial port. If the cloudbox starts and uboot is loading it will give output.

But if you didn't flash uboot then there must be another reason why uboot doesn't react in the waiting for uboot window.
It must be something in your lan. Note there is no need to setup an ip, uboot will assign an ip automatically.

Be sure to have only one wired ethernet adapter active on your pc. Use a wired connection between pc and router use as IP pool on your router 192 168.1.xxx. Leave settings of the condole on the defaults.

[soladzur]

If you connect the serial interface correctly and use a program like putty with correct com port settings you can open a terminal window to look at output of the serial port. If the cloudbox starts and uboot is loading it will give output.

But if you didn't flash uboot then there must be another reason why uboot doesn't react in the waiting for uboot window.
It must be something in your lan. Note there is no need to setup an ip, uboot will assign an ip automatically.

Be sure to have only one wired ethernet adapter active on your pc. Use a wired connection between pc and router use as IP pool on your router 192 168.1.xxx. Leave settings of the condole on the defaults.

Thanks you.

what is the default IP the device assigns to it in case of no DHCP server and direct connection? 192.168.1.252?
And what should be the IP from the laptop side? 192.168.1.148?

[soladzur]

another thing I've noticed:
On ethernet port statistics of the laptop connected directly to the NAS:
- No IP packets received via ethernet connection. but the right led on the cloudbox is blinking. :(

[fvdw]

If you connect the nas direct to your pc without dhcp server uboot will not be able to respond to the fvdw-sl console.
You have to enable a dhcp server on your pc or use a router with dhcp server and connect PC and nas to it.
The process is as follow, uboot is loaded automatically by nas when powered on, it activates thenetwrrk interface and looks for a specific broadcast message on the netwerk. If it detects that it interrupts boot and send a message to the sender of the message. In this case the pc running the fvdw-sl console while it is waiting for uboot. The console then gets information how to communicate with uboot and can upload and start the standalone kernel.

As soon as the standalone kernel is uploaded this kernel will set an ip which it get from dhcp server and it sets two more ip's 192.168.1.252 and 192.168.0.252. Which can be used by telnet terminal to talk to the kernel running on the nas.

Ps. I read you use a laptop. Laptops have besides a wired ethernet connection also a wireless ethernet card. You must disable the wireless interface to be able to use the fvdw-sl console.
If you don't disable the wireless interface the fvdw-sl console will not detect uboot.

[soladzur]

If you connect the nas direct to your pc without dhcp server uboot will not be able to respond to the fvdw-sl console.
You have to enable a dhcp server on your pc or use a router with dhcp server and connect PC and nas to it.
The process is as follow, uboot is loaded automatically by nas when powered on, it activates thenetwrrk interface and looks for a specific broadcast message on the netwerk. If it detects that it interrupts boot and send a message to the sender of the message. In this case the pc running the fvdw-sl console while it is waiting for uboot. The console then gets information how to communicate with uboot and can upload and start the standalone kernel.

As soon as the standalone kernel is uploaded this kernel will set an ip which it get from dhcp server and it sets two more ip's 192.168.1.252 and 192.168.0.252. Which can be used by telnet terminal to talk to the kernel running on the nas.

Ps. I read you use a laptop. Laptops have besides a wired ethernet connection also a wireless ethernet card. You must disable the wireless interface to be able to use the fvdw-sl console.
If you don't disable the wireless interface the fvdw-sl console will not detect uboot.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I'm still stuck on DHCP phase. I connect the NAS to the router directly but no IP assigned from the router DHCP. While the ethernet link is up. Does it actually mean that flash was somehow damaged and needs to be reflashed via USB interface?

[fvdw]

You don't have to quote my post ;)

The blinking of the ethernet connector on the nas doesn't mean it is working. It are the signals send by the router.
When you use the console to load the standalone kernel does the nas respond to waiting for uboot when powered on.
And did you disable your wireless interface on your laptop?