Bricked Forti 421E - Reset via USB?

Question

I seem to have bricked a new FortiAP 421E while setting up a number of these for a wireless upgrade. It happened while it was upgrading firmware and I mistakenly shut down the port it was connected to, now it's stuck in a boot loop and never comes active.

I can console into it and attempt a TFTP transfer, but Fortinet support says that can only be done via the LAN ports, (looks like only LAN1).....but that isn't working and I can't ping it's interface so I'm suspecting the NIC cards aren't active.

This leads me to wonder what the heck is the USB port for? Fortinet support said it is not possible to upgrade the firmware via the USB port, but what else would you use it if not as a last resort to upgrading the firmware?

wanglei_FTNT · Answer

You will have to go to bootloader mode to recover the AP

MAC2 addr:e8:1c:ba:3b:e8:a9 eth0, eth1 Hit any key to stop autoboot: 5

: Get OS image from TFTP server. : Quit menu and continue to boot with default OS. : Display this list of options.

Enter G,Q,or H:

Please connect TFTP server to Ethernet port 'LAN1'.

Enter TFTP server address [192.168.1.10]: 192.168.5.254 <---your tftp server IP Enter local address [192.168.1.1]: 192.168.5.2 <---Any unused IP in that subnet Enter firmware image file name [image.out]: <---firmware name Full duplex link

Once AP gets the image and you can use D option to set it as default boot image and you should be good to go.

A couple of things to note:

1) you can ping AP's IP only when it's doing tftp tranfer.

2) If you have both LAN1 and LAN 2 plugged for aggregation purpose, please unplug LAN2 port

This should help you recover your box.

Cheers,

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