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Recovering an unmanageable WRT54GL (OpenWRT lost password)

A friend recently brought us a Linksys WRT54GL which had been laying around for a while and whose password was not available anymore.

None of the "easy" password recovery methods seemed to work (like holding the reset button, power-cycling etc.) - possibly because the corresponding options had been previously disabled.

In the end, I used the TFTP method described here: http://oldwiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs(2f)Installing(2f)TFTP.html

However, it didn't work until all these conditions were met:

- the laptop with the firmware image and the tftp client had to be connected to the WRT through an external switch

- the switch had to be unplugged from the LAN

- I had to lauch a "ping -f 192.168.1.1" in a different terminal before powering on the WRT in order for the tftp transfer to start

- before and after the flashing I followed the 30/30/30 procedure (not sure if that one is mandatory but it is recommended)

To make sure the hardware was working I installed the latest firmware from the Linksys website (WRT54GL_v4.30.11_012_ETSI_EN_code.bin), but now I'll likely reflash it with OpenWRT - this time from the web interface :o)
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Sara Pall on :

Hmmm so complicated.....
Is it working now???
Well the problem seems to be very common and let me tell you one thing that this problem have so many different solution and this is not sure that which solution will work for you..????????This is really difficult to handle actually i have just completed my CISSP exam and now a days i am totally free so i just keep on checking the blogs because this is the best way to get information....

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