Watchguard Firebox M400/M500
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@stephenw10 .... Hello, I am lost now..... I have tried every suggestion in this forum in order to gain access to the box and tried to install opnsense. I have tried the USB flash drive and CF flash card with Freedos, msdos, tiny Linux to no avail, this box just boots with the original CF flash card that came with it, I did reset the box too but besides to just login there is no much to it.
I removed the CF card to see if I could see the BIOS message but nothing. The serial connection only shows output when I boot with the original CF card.
Any suggestions in how I could get into the BIOS?
Thanks for your attention and support...
Bye now -
@jriofrio if i get it right,your serial only works after bios(no bios output),and bios is set to boot only from cf (strange,on my board,not m400,it booted from usb when i removed cf)...also,cf is connected through asmedia to sata port (if i remember correctly,not important...
so your only chance is to boot from cf,that means cf reader,either make image of whole card and double verify,or use another cf (if you are waiting on reader,you can buy another reader too anyway) and treat cf as usb(from the info in posts up),and flash bios this wayedit:i missed you trying cf already,maybe you will have to reflash bios using ch341a flasher (with soic8/sop8 clip),that way you can backup and play with it however you want and you can always flash again,no worry of corrupted bios
edit2:it looks like your serial comes up after boot (not during,you don't see boot log,right?),maybe(just a tiny maybe),just to be sure,you have 115200 baud and no flow control?
we all had serial ready during bios,so you can maybe do blind flash-i.e. make autoexec.bat with commands.... -
Yeah if you see no output from the BIOS you might also have a 3 wire console cable and it requires the hardware flowcontrol wires. FreeDOS also requires that but I wouldn't expect TinyCore to.
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@korenchkin ... Answering your comment, yes, I don't see any bios output it comes with that screen shot I posted before. Yes, I do have the 115200 baud rate.
I'm inclining to go the direct connection to flush a new bios. I have to get one kit first.
I don't understand the last part where you mention to use an Autoexe.bat.
I have tried hitting the Tab key as soon as power the box on, stil don't do anything. -
@stephenw10 .... I went to check the cable to see in the rj45 how many connections are, well 4 for sure and 3 more that are not very clear.
I have a cable that I will try tomorrow. It is an old Cisco cable with rj45 at one end and a db9 at the other. My old workstation Dell precision has serial db9 connection, will see if that will allow me to see the BIOS boot up output.
Fingers crossed.... -
Ok I read back through the thread here and it's been too many years and too many box variations but looks like console redirect is not enabled by default so you won't see any BIOS output. The first thing you see is from the bootloader as you found.
But that tinycore image should work. I used that to flash an m500 not that long ago. How did you write it out to CF?
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@stephenw10 .... Well, I tried with the USB at first then I tried with the CF card. I used Rufus first in both, didn't work so I used belena etcher and last I used a piberry image writter with the USB and CF card. I also tried the tylinux in the USB and CF card... No joy. I used 2 different USB sticks and 2 different CF cards... Nothing, nada, zilch...
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Yeah it won't boot USB by default, you have to use CF.
Do you hear it beep like it's booting? Try using Etcher to write the image.
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@stephenw10 ... Yes. I do hear a couple beeps with either USB or CF card. As I mentioned earlier I did used etcher too.
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Hmm, well I just tested here on an m400 I have that still has the original BIOS and that tinycore image does boot. I had to try 2 CF cards though. I can only suggest trying a different card.
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@stephenw10 ... Will do, I will get a new CF card and use etcher too... Hope it works.
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@stephenw10 @jriofrio If I remember correctly, I had to flash the tinylinux image onto the orignal CF card to get the machine to boot from it. I tried other CF cards but it wouldn't boot from them until I flashed the BIOS. Once it was flashed, the machine will boot from anything. You won't see the BIOS POST until it's flashed; the original BIOS doesn't output anything over serial, at least mine didn't!
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Mmm, you might just retry the CF cards you have I found it failed to boot the card I have a few times but did eventually boot it. No idea why. Cosmic rays perhaps!
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@jriofrio some bioses can lock out 'unapproved' pci cards,i could guess there could be some kind of lockout for cf cards,so maybe trying the original (with verified backup)
as for autoexec.bat,that is something that dos starts after boot (since you are headless - no keyboard/monitor),this would work if it boots but don't show serial,there would be commands exactly as you type them manually...but hard to debug if you don't see anything,it could be asking for bios file,or wrong switch or telling bad command and you never know...so if you are certain what to type with paths,you can try this,i bet there is switch to 'reset/reboot' after flashing,probably cmos clear parameter too,so you could wait for console (can't restart while flashing still works,so you need to be sure you can reset or wait long enough)
edit:cf cards also have some modes of operation(udma,pio),so maybe it just can't talk correctly to that asmedia sata bridge(asmedia are not that great,sensitive to firmware versions-talking from experience with theirs usb-sata bridges,i don't trust them),so best could be sticking to the original..maybe even adding floppy image as image to grub,that could work,but requires a bit of linux/booting knowledge,i think there must be some loader too,not sure
edit2:i finally looked at your image(sorry,too much up,didn't read it all),when it boots,you should see it there i believe,this kinda looks like it is really not booting,so getting into grub seems like great idea,maybe allowing editing for starters...(need to do in grub.cfg probably on cf /boot/grub.cfg or menu.lst)
