How to unbrick a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND router (re-uploaded) || How-to-fix tutorial

Thank you for this great tutorial, so detailed and understandable. Have done this work via PL2303HX USB TTL. Cheap board and simple solution.

Thank you very much, sir! I managed to issue a new lease on life on my WR1043ND V1.8 ( YB 2008, acq. 2012 ) which I had reflashed with DD-WRT before. It was solid, but acted kinda flaky and I started to question its reliability. As a consequence it layed in a box in my attic for several years as I went for another router. Recently I dug it out, and gave it a try with delicate precaution and triple-checking the boot start and end values of the flash cell. Got it on the first attempt, and now it's recommissioned in my home network as a wireless host. TP-Link dropped support long time ago, so it's high time for security improvement. And there we have it: A router from 2008 running OpenWRT 23.05.0 happily.
Bonus: It comes with WPA3 which is quite remarkable and interesting.

why i install ddwrt but openwrt can show at my putty ?

I have used FTDI cable, and nothings happen, did not connect to router by serilal console :(

i need dump wr1043nd

All gone smooth with my 1043Nd V1.7 and your video.
Thank you very much.

Uau. Em 2022 consegui reviver meu 1043ND. Deu trabalho...
Por algum motivo, o tftp32 (no exemplo) nao funciona comigo. Nao exibe mensagens de envio do arquivo, nem nada no log. Desabilitei firewall e nada.
Enfim encontrei um outro client chamado WinAgents TFTP server que funcionou no Windows 10 64.
Valeu !!! Sem esse video, eu nao conseguiria nem abrir a caixa do router sem estragar. hehe

Después de mucho tiempo metido en un cajón....ya está funcionando.
Muchas gracias.

The beginning of the video did even have hope, because I imagined it would only be possible to recover the router if it had at least initialized, but the video device can't even have a working switch! Mine for years had the customizable openwrt firmware, it was quite useful, but with new equipment on the network I needed the features available only in the original firmware (like QoS control in hardware). I was using a swap pendrive and ended up having a serious problem when trying the original TPlink firmware, now the system led, wan port and dhcp service don't work, clear sign of missing software, but as switch it still works. After work I will run this solution and hope to have this cool equipment back.

Благодарю

Many thx for your help !

How about comfast?

Thank you, my router live again :)

i did all like you did but my putty dos not open com6 or any other ports there is alternative for a putty?
edit pl2303hxa driver was need a fix thanks for a video tut vary helpfull

Are you using JTAG or USB-TTL? It says JTAG is used for flashing.

Thank you so much for this video, it helped me rescue my bricked router!

Thanks for this clearly explained video. I fixed my router and saved it from the trash bin.
Also learned some new stuff (USB to TTL). So fixing things , save money and having fun.
Thanks!

Hi... Could you please give me information how to unbrick TP-LINK TL-WR340G ???

Thank you very much! It saved my old TL-WR1043 v1 router!

Perfect. Thank you so much!

Ты меня спас!!!!

Thx from Hungary :) it works again :)

Hi Chris, thanks a lot man, I have my 1043 working again !!!!!

hello first thing thanks for your very useful video I am an Italian and I have a router tp-link tl-wr1043nd I had problems with the firmware update and now it does not even read the network cards when I insert the rj45 cable to disconnect me.
Do you think with this procedure do you think I can restore it?

sorry my english i am using google translator.

thank you

Use TeraTerm and Broadcast command option to enter "tpl" into the boot. That worked.
After this the rest was easy.
note that the default firmeware needs to be stripped (dd if=filein of=fileout skip=257 bs=512) (in case is not in the video).
and this fileout (e.g. firmware.bin) can be used in the tftp directory/upload sequence.

was a day struggling to get into the boot sequence........

Thanks a ton! This video helped me bring my router back to life after flashing a bad firmware to it

Hello ... Thanks for the helpful explanation ...
I have a router TP-LINK TL-WE941ND L broken ... How do I locate MY PL2303HX connection on the router board .... To do the same as you did ..... Thank you.
Translation by Google.

Excellent job mate, thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Just a few notes on this, for people that can't still unbrick their router.


I have WR1043nd V1.7 (last version without fail-safe) and i was using dd-wrt, and decided to update my firmware because i had changed my ISP.
Used the wrong firmware version (dd-wrt for V2 instead of V1) and bricked my router.
Tried other tutorials but since my version doesn't have flash fail-safe, and my LAN ports were not powered for some reason, i couldn't fix it without opening it.


I followed this tutorial, soldered the pins, got the latest firmware version from tp-link, the correct one this time, followed the steps but no luck. I was still getting flashing LED's and this message on Putty "No valid address in Flash. Using fixed address. Auto-booting" or something like it.


So, my mistake here was getting firmware from tp-link instead of dd-wrt. Since i was using dd-wrt before the "brickning", I tried flashing the router again, this time with dd-wrt (same version i had before) and voilá, it came back from the dead.


Hope my experience helps someone. This works on Windows 10, with the latest versions of the software's on the video. All good as of 03/12/19.

does it work for TL-WR941ND V3?
has someone tried it?

Today,19 Oct.2019, I'm still watching it for the same problem. Thank you from Italy

thks for your experience. I hope it will work for me.
I made a piratebox months ago and I decided to make a bibliobox this time and I did something wrong.
Your procedure seems to be my last chance before the hammer !

Tutorial made very well. I did what was shown in the video until Putty starts talking to the router ì. The only problem is I CANNOT interrupt the loop with the "tpl" command. It is as if Putty did not receive the command and follows the restart at infinity. How can I do? Thank you!!

Tutorial very well explained. The recovery was successful. Congratulations and thanks.

Thank you so much sir! Not only saved this video my router from the junkyard. It's also been a fun learning experience! My router is even performing better than before with the OpenWRT firmware.

Nice & clean Job!!!

Why solder on a USB ? there is one on the back !

I have two wr1043N: v1.6 and 1.8. This process work on v1.8, but yhe v1.6 don't receive the tpl command. I try 2 different ttl USB adapter (2303 and 2102) Can any help me please?

Самое толковое видео! По этой инструкции всё прошло гладко и получилось восстановить работу роутера! Больше спасибо вам! Использовал устройство на чипе CP2102.

if my freind I have the Router TL-MR3420 this software is good OpenWrt and putty

Thanks for this video, it helped me rescue my bricked router.

Excelente, los pasos tal cual. MUCHAS GRACIAS

after i hit the "tftpboot 0x81000000 firmware.bin [ENTER]" keep error retry count exceeded; starting again. anyone can solve my error?