Dead card after wrong pda and firmware flashing
Raffaele Raf
raffaele1963
Sat Apr 12 10:30:46 PDT 2003
I found the info below in a forum. I hope it will
help!
You will need Prism DOS based utility which is even
harder to get. I used the DOS utility to resurrect a
dead Prism 2 card after a bad flash.
The following is a link to old Hawking WE110P driver
package includes DOS utilities (see romcode
directory). This is the only place I found these
utilities. I think it was left there by mistake (lucky
for me)
?www.hawkingtech.com/download/we110.exe[?]
Unfortunately there is no documentation. I figured out
the use of these utilities for a dead card of my own
but I cannot guarantee that it will work for you.
There are some .bat files that you can use for "model"
only as they are basically crafted for hawking cards.
Do not use them!
First make a bootable DOS floppy. Copy the romcode
directory contents to the floppy and boot from the
floppy.
Legacy.exe is needed to get PCMCIA card services
installed. You must run this after booting. It will
hopefully recognize your PCMCIA chipset and card. If
not you cannot recover on that PC.
You also need to know if your card is a 3v or 5v card.
I believe Linksys cards are 5v. There are really few
3v PCMCIA cards around. Proxim RangeLan-DS cards are
3v for example.
Flash.exe is the DOS flash utility. If you just run
the program with -? option you can get some
information on options.
flash.exe -?
The .hex files are firmware files. The ones in the
directory they are for Prism 2 cards only. While you
can find Primary and Secondary firmware for Prism 2.5
and Prism 3.0 cards by searching the internet, I have
not seen any RAM resident Initial firmware for Prism
2.5/3.0. I am not sure if the initial firmware would
work for Prism 2.5/3.0. I have not tried. (I might try
one day because it is ram resident and should not
harm). You said you had Linksys v1 card. So, it should
be Prism 2 card (Linksys v2.5/3.0 are Prism 2.5/3.0
respectively)
The .pda files are manufacturer related card
information (like MAC address etc). If you have a
working card you can retrieve PDA information using
the Windows Flash Utility.
I assumed my PDA information on the card was still OK
and just uploaded the firmware and it worked for me.
You might need a valid PDA from a working like card
and override the MAC address with -m (or -MP or -MI
options) to the correct one.
To resurrect the card you need to download ram
resident initial firmware to the card. Since this step
does not require any working firmware on the card it
should work. Initial firmware files are I*.hex. Since
I remembered the primary firmware version of my dead
card was P40003C0.HEX before the upgrade I used
I40003C0.HEX as initial firmware to download. The
command was:
flash -5v -i I40003C0.HEX
Again voltage is important. At this point the LED on
card would become active again. First sign of life! If
it does not work unplug the card and try again using
the other initial firmware. In my experience most
Prism 2 cards use P4*.HEX firmware so this will most
likely work.
Next, you need to download Primary (P*.HEX) and
Secondary (S*.HEX) firmware to the card flash using
the initial firmware just downloaded. Again there are
two types of Primary firmware on the floppy. If you
used I4*.HEX you should use P4*.HEX. If you used
I1*.HEX you should use P1*.HEX.
flash -5v -g -d P40003C0.HEX
flash -5v -g -d S10007C6.HEX
After this you can remove the card.
Use vendor supplied firmware upgrade utility to to
bring secondary firmware up to date. Or search the
internet for later secondary firmware.
You could use later secondary firmware with DOS based
utility but I suggest you use either vendor firmware
upgrade utility or proceed with Windows based utility
for that because I know it does model checking with
firmware and will not allow Prism 2.5/3.0 firmware on
Prism 2 card or vice versa. You can find this by
searching as well.
As final remark, I'll just write down the Prism 2
secondary firmware files that I found available on the
Internet.
S10006C2.HEX - Very old. Do not use (Upgrade
immediately)
S10007C6.HEX - Very old. Do not use (Upgrade
immediately)
S10008C2.HEX - Very old. Do not use (Upgrade
immediately)
S10008C3.HEX - Good. Most Prism 2 cards.
S1010304.HEX - Recommend for Windows XP. Not
recommended for Linux HostAP use.
S1010409.HEX - Hard to find. (I believe it has
functionality comparable to Prism 2.5/3.0 card
firmware SF010409.HEX)
Good luck!
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