The Layman's guide to flashing Ambit Cable Modems

[cockneysean]

To bake your modded ambit 250/255 cake you will need the following ingredients:

1 Ambit 250/255 Cable Modem
1 MAX232 TTL Converter
1 PC
1 Live cable feed

Console Unlocker
TFTP Server Software(google it there are many)
Putty Terminal Emulator (Google: Putty)
Soft JTAG (And its dependencies)
2.1.6d Noisy Bootloader

Once you have your ingredients gathered, it is time to start to prepare them.

I always like to start by configuring the IP address of the network card on the PC to 192.168.100.10 so that it is ready to communicate with the modem.

To perform this step, go to control panel, network connections, select your network connection with a click of the right mouse button to bring up the context menu then click properties. Now find Internet Protocol/TCP/IP and click it, then click properties.

Another box will appear with an option at the top to obtain an IP automatically or set your own. Set your own to 192.168.100.10, click in the subnet mask box and it will automatically appear. OK the actions you have just performed and close all dialog boxes.

Now connect your ethernet lead and max 232 to your Ambit, and power it up.

Now it's time to start console unlocker, so let's fire it up with a double click and hit the "Execute Exploit" button. If it has worked it will tell you so, likewise if it hasn't.

Assuming it has worked, now open the SoftJtag program and hit the connect button.

Once connected, just to check all is OK, I like to read the bootloader so you have a backup off the original and test comms,. So hit bootloader and wait whilst it reads it and saves it.

Once it has read without any errors, go ahead and click the Write Bootloader button and locate the 2.1.6d bootloader that you are going to write to it and go ahead and write it. This can take a little while, so just be patient and try not to start browing your favourite websites or playing your games why this is happening.

Once the flash has completed successfully, you are now ready to hit DISCONNECT in SiftJTAG and reboot into the modem and access the p option. But first we need to start Putty.

Get Putty fired up and set up a Serial connection on the COM port that your MAX232 is plugged into, with a speed of 115200 bps, and no flow control or parity.

Once you have the settings in putty, click Open so Putty is connected to the modem, and then reset the modem and immediately start tapping p on the keyboard, making sure that the putty window is the window currently in focus. If you miss the "p" option at this point you will have to start again as the bootloader will be overwritten.

Once you have gotten into the "p" menu you will be asked to set up the modems ethernet settings. Set the modems IP to 192.168.100.1, and then accept the default settings for the other options put forward to you.

Now you will be at the modems main menu. Now you need to start your tftp server software and make sure that the firmware that you are going to flash is in the tftp server software's root directory, the place where it serves its files from. For more info on that you may need to refer to the instructions for your particular tftp server.

Now you are ready to select the "D" option in Putty to flash the new firmware. When prompted enter the IP of the tftp server as 192.168.100.10, and when it asks for the filename, enter the filename of the firmware that you want to upload.

You will see the modem download the file with ........ going across the screen. There will be an error relating to the image type, just OK it and continue. You will then need to specify which sector to flash the firmware to. SELECT SECTOR 1 anything else will ruin your modem. The software will then be flashed onto the modem and you will be prompted to store parameters.

Store parameters basically saves to the flash all the settings that you used such as tftp server ip for the firmware and the ethernet settings for next time you want to reflash, so hit yes to save and next time you are here you won't need to set the IP's you will just have to specify the new filename.

You will now be back at the modems main menu, and a quick test to make sure everything has worked, you can hit the "B" option to boot the modem, and you should see the modem start to scan through the frequencies. Assuming it is scanning, the flash is successful and you can disconnect the power, then the max 232 and put it back together.

Once its back together, connect by ethernet, go back to the network connections in control panel and set your IP to be obtained automatically, and then get your browser open and navigate to http://192.168.100.1

You should now be presented with Haxorware.

To set up Haxorware, please read around the forums.

I hope it's written clearly enough, any comments or errors, please post below and I will try to get it edited.

[cockneysean]

Sorry I need to edit "1152000 bps" to 115200

[cockneysean]

Could someone please edit/let me edit the corrections please guys?

[Jimdefruit]

Baud rate edited as requested.

[Migz]

Can this be stickied as its a guide

[cockneysean]

I enquired about sticky.

And thanks for the edit.

[cloughy_21]

sorry

[cockneysean]

Sorry for what lol?

[toolzkit]

sorry for bumpin his post counts

[Cameron_b]

can you flash a modem that has already been flashed with other firmware?