[darrin261]

shorting of the last 2 connections on the right worked for me. Thanks for the post.

[ubforty]

[wats6831]

Thanks this worked on the first try.

[BryanMohr]

Glad everyone else had luck with these methods. I'm not sure where I went wrong, but I went from getting the 2-3 ping replies after powering on, to now getting no replies at all. When the power is first turned off it is "Hardware Error" for about 10 seconds, then "Destination Host is Unreachable", tthen after power is applied again we still have DHU for about 10 second, then "Request Timeout" forever. No more replies for me.

Anyone have any other ideas? Can anyone point me towards a guide for making a serial connection to this? It's basically garbage right now so if I screw it up, oh well.

[gldndragon77]

Thanks guys! I found this site because I bricked my WNR 2000v2 after having successfully flashed Tomato a couple different times, but I was trying to flash another version that subsequently failed and left me with a brick.

This was easy and worked like a charm

[rpadula]

It worked for me, using tftp in terminal (osx).
followed the opening post instructions, but after tftping the green power light never stopped blinking, so tried to tftp again and then it worked!
what i noticed was the first tftping went fast (less than 2 seconds) and then it started blinking green. i tried tftp again (like the last post on page 1) and then it took a little longer to finish, then rebooted.

between flashes i've waited about 5 minutes, and ping was running.

Thanks a lot!

[Zebra Danio]

Worked after a couple of tries. I was trying to avoid pin shotrs but nothing else was working.

Many thanks

[lambo]

Thank you Quasi635 for posting this, I have just recovered my wnr2000v2

[cmbugg]

Thanks for the huge help - this forum was exactly what I needed to unbrick a Netgear N300 WNR2000v2 that has been sitting around full bricked for 2 years. Only a stroke of small fortune that I hadn't thrown it out already. Even luckier that my girlfriend hadn't thrown it out already!

BLUF:
Based on what is shown in this thread, behavior of a router with working bootloader but no working FW is somewhat non-deterministic. Here is what ultimately worked for me.
1. Download firmware (I used the DD-WRT v24 pre-SP2 mini load for WNW2000v2 - link below; STOCK NETGEAR FW DIDN'T WORK FOR ME - but it may not have been a problem w/ the FW - it may have been a problem with my TFTP2 timing... I will never know!)
2. Download TFTP2.exe
3. Set up constant ping 192.168.1.1 -t
4. Short pins, apply power, hold short for a while, look for ping replies.
5. With reliable TTL 100 replies, don't worry about shorting any more. put screwdriver away!
6. Set up TFTP2.exe with router address (192.168.1.1) and DD-WRT FW for WNR2000v2 (mini)
7. Turn router power off. Each time you attempt to flash, hit "upgrade" button at a different point of router power up sequence. The first time I hit "upgrade" before I even powered the router on. The second time, I did it as soon as I powered router on (this worked). If I had done it a third time, I would have waited to hit "upgrade" at first TTL 100 reply. If I had done another attempt, I guess I would have tried hitting "upgrade" on 4th TTL 100 reply... you get it.
8. Each time TFTP2 indicates "success", temper your excitement. Wait a minute. Power down router. Power up router. Observe ping replies. If, after about 5-10 replies, TTL 100 changes to TTL 64, you've got working FW! Log into web splash @ 192.168.1.1!

Details:

Seems like everyone has a variation on this - probably because it's not an exact science and relies on some non-deterministic and lucky timing... so here's my variation...

- Can't recall how I bricked the router 2 years ago (maybe longer). Probably didn't follow the Peacock thread on my first attempt at flashing a router with DD-WRT... bad on me! At the time, I was persistent but done with this router and switched over (successfully!) to a straight-stick Belkin F7D4301 w/ a v24-SP2 VPNKONG load.
- NetGear N300 WNR2000v2 router was full on bricked. Green power led and the active port led would light up, but NO PING RESPONSE.
- I took the cover off the router. I didn't have a suitable small wrench to get the two screws off the bottom, so I drilled them out - nothing duct tape won't fix later today!
- The router's board is populated on both sides - so if you take the cover off and the board doesn't look like the picture in this thread, that's ok - take the opposite cover off! picture here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=502580
- I shorted the 2 pins as described in this thread. I applied short, turned on power, saw some blue/green flashing around the 3rd pin adjacent to the pins i was shorting. Held short in place and tried to flash via TFTP as described in this thread. At this point i was getting ping replies for the first time in 2 years from this HW!
- After several variations on the pin shorting-flashing-unshorting-reshorting-flashing-etc, I finally determined that I could get ping replies, which was progress, but was not going to be successful flashing in this manner. At times, the TFTP2 utility would indicate flashing success, but I was not able to pull up the router's webserver or otherwise telnet into the router. Plus, ping replies were always TTL 100, which I later found indicated a working bootloader with no working FW. So, just because TFTP2 indicates "success" doesn't mean you were really successful.
- I can't recall specifically how it all transpired, but it seems through the various attempts to flash, i was re-bricking the router (no ping replies). each time I rebricked, I was able to reliably un-brick to the point of getting ping replies by doing the simple exercise of powering off, applying short to those two pins, powering on, and unshorting once i got ping replies.
- Accepting that this was not going to get me a working router, I decided to explore some more threads, and ended up re-familiarizing myself w/ Peacock #6 @ http://dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=51486 (6. Is your router bricked?)
- I was reliably getting TTL 100 responses, which, according to Peacock, meant my bootloader was working, but no firmware was loading.
- I decided to give up on the NetGear stock firmware and downloaded a DD-WRT mini load: ftp://dd-wrt.com/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2010/12-24-10-r15962/broadcom_K26/dd-wrt.v24-15962_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-WNR2000v2.chk
- I used the TFTP2.exe utility (I downloaded that from http://www.shadowsoftware.net/shadowgameworld/downloads/tftp2.exe
- I configured the TFTP2 client by pointing it to 192.168.1.1 (where I was getting ping replies), pointing it to the DD-WRT FW load I had downloaded and setting retries to 99. No password.
- I resolved to do this very methodically. I turned the router power off. I set up a constant ping via a command prompt (ping 192.168.1.1 -t), I brought up the TFTP2 utility and hit "Upgrade". Since the router was off, I got the dialog box saying, "Erasing Flash (It may take a long time, please wait.)" I didn't let the worry me. I turned on power to the router. Got a couple of TTL 100 replies, then some no replies. Meanwhile the TFTP2 utility cycled to its next attempt. Router started replying TTL 100, TFTP2 utility uploaded firmware, indicating "Success". Router stopped replying. I waited about a min, then cycled router power. Router began replying with TTL 100, but that was it. status quo: working bootloader, no working FW.
- This time i decided to hit "upgrade" on the TFTP2 utility AS SOON AS I TURNED ON ROUTER POWER. I set everything up. Turned on router power and it "Upgrade" on the TFTP2 client right away. TFTP2 client went into its "stuck" state of "Upgrading Flash (It may take...)" As router began replying with TTL 100, TFTP2 utility cycled into its second attempt and successfully uploaded the DD-WRT v24-preSP2 FW and indicated success.
- I waited another minute or so. I can't recall at this point whether router was responding to pings. I cycled power to the router and observed ping replies. Ping replies promptly came back at TTL 100. After a few ping replies they started coming back at TTL 64, at which point I declared, "I think I fixed it!"
- I brought up http://192.168.1.1 in my browser and was taken to the DD-WRT login screen! Working 4.0!

[dagg]

the guts of the v3 are a bit different, is there a similar way to do this on the v3?

[iamdoubz]

But it lies!!!

I follow all instructions on here, but have a strange outcome.

My ping to router will no matter what give me a ttl=100, and this is good meaning that it wants the firmware now. So, I fire up tftp2 and it says that the update was successful! But, after it's so called success, the ping stops responding or connection could not be made. So, I turn off router or 30/30/30 my router and when I turn back on all the lights flash all at once, then the amber power light for 5 seconds, then it returns to blinking green light.

Any ideas? Yes, I know about Peacock and have read everything twice. I think I am missing something and could really use you guys' help at this point.

***************************************
EDIT: 5:01PM 2013-06-16
***************************************

So for some odd reason, the tftp2.exe was not letting me upload the .chk files so I had been zipping them. So, I switched tftp clients to tftpd64.exe and uploaded the .chk file and BOOM. That was easy.

[svan71]

[kmpdx]

Thanks for the dedicated people who made this work. I am setting up a DDWRT based network for my neighbor and when I flashed the wnr200 v2 router I did not wait long enough at the end and bricked it! Funny thing was that the instructions were very explicit regarding waiting, "5 full earth minute" yet I still screwed it up. The photo was key and I definitely used the detail added by montz to get this to work regarding the flashing green light. Also, personally I used a bit of copper wire to 'short' the connections in the photo on page 1 of this post. I got the firmware to reflash and now have successfully installed and configured this router with DDWRT. Thanks!

[ps3o-k]

i would like to know if there is an easier way/example to do this. i mean, step by step completely. i'm having problems with the whole IP thing; setting up the network adapter, and tftp2- it just crashes on me. if someone can help, i'd appreciate it, especially since all these things need to be done whilst offline. thank you so much for your help and your replies.

[rpadula]

So if tried to flash the latest beta available to this router and i've had issues with wifi so i've tried another one which bricked.

after a night of trying to revive it using the methods on this topic and failing this is what i come up to.

-The methods are fine, they work

- U need to tftp a CHK file, no binaries. All CHK's from netgear flashed flawslessly everytime i've tried.

-There must be some issues with DD-wrt .chk files (initial flashing) cause after flashing the power light goes to solid amber and after a while start blinking green, waiting for a flash.

the Only CHK file from dd-wrt that worked for me was an ancient one , build 16785
after that i was able to flash a "new" build 21061, K26 mini.bin
i was using a build from january 2013, 20548 which worked fine and tried to flash a build from march 2014 that turns out had issues with wifi.

Don't give up, if it's still pingin'u should be flashin' (HUEHUEBR)