Bricked camera UART shows bad block table...

[wang]

I've got an old Ambarella A5s chipset camera that doesn't show up on any search with SADP or ONVIF or CMS but does show up in my NVR except with a bogus IP of 127.0.0.12 and the correct MAC address. I can hear the IR filter click open/close after 20sec of boot up so I think it's still alive but the config is bad/corrupt.

I hooked up my usb-ttl adapter and got some info but I don't know how to proceed. I tried ctrl+u to interrupt but nothing happens.

I have attached a pic of the camera board as well. Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[alastairstevenson]

I tried ctrl+u to interrupt but nothing happens.

Normally the u-boot would indicate how to interrupt it, such as
'press any key', or Control-C or keep * pressed.
What shows at startup?

By the way - a 'bad block table' is a standard part of handling flash memory in embedded systems. There may or may not be any contents.

 

[wang]

@alastairstevenson

Hey, thanks for the reply!

The first pic attached is all I get when I power it on (I did it a few times, lol). I am unfamiliar with this message as it looks different than all the other tutorials I've read on the matter.

Ya, I was reading that and if bad blocks are normal then why is the boot process stopping? Or more likely, what am I doing wrong? Lol

Firstly, is it possible I've connected my USB-TTL adapter to the wrong pins? I tried the other 4pin header at the bottom right of the second pic, but it tests as 5v and still doesn't output anything with the adapter switched to 5v.

 

[alastairstevenson]

The first pic attached is all I get when I power it on

What keys have you tried when powering it on, to try to interrupt the bootloader?
Keep them pressed on the keyboard long enough to auto-repeat before you power the device.
<Return> is also a possible candidate.

Of course it's also possible the bootloader is broken.