Fixing a Bricked MiniPwner - nicholasadamou/minipwner GitHub Wiki

Rebuilding

If your MiniPwner gets “bricked” (you can’t login to it anymore because the network configuration is bad or you lost the root password) you can restore it back to factory default using the following process:

  1. Boot the router into failsafe mode
    • Power it off.
    • Power it back on.
    • Immediately press and hold the reset button with a paperclip for about 5-10 seconds.

The LED will begin to quickly flash on and off. This indicates the router is in failsafe mode.

  1. Telnet into the TP-Link @ 192.168.1.1 using PuTTY if on PC.

    • DHCP is disabled by default, so you will need to manually configure your PC's network card to a static IP of 192.168.1.2 or another IP in that subnet.

  2. Download the OpenWRT Barrier Breaker firmware image found here.

  3. Open CMD.exe and run the following command (this assumes netcat is installed):

    cat openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin | nc -l 3333

    Note: 3333 is an arbitrary port, any free port would be fine; something higher than 1000.*

  4. At the telnet dialog through PuTTY:

nc 192.168.1.2 3333 > /tmp/703.bin
cd /tmp
mtd -r write 703.bin firmware
  1. Once it reboots, follow the steps under Configuring a TP-Link MR3040 into a MiniPwner to restore the MiniPwner software and configuration.