"Bricked" RB230 while upgrading to 4.2

I had a working RB230 on 3.30. I saw that the new 4.2 is final so I decided to upgrade. I followed these steps:

  1. Upgraded my license key to to the new format
  2. Entered the system commands in telnet to upgrade my BIOS/firmware
  3. Moved the “combined” package for 4.2 into the CF card through winbox
  4. Rebooted.

It did not upgrade and just kept power cycling infinitely.

So I downloaded the 1.3.8 BIOS and uploaded it though XMODEM. I also did a netinstall on the CF to 3.30. Nothing works. It keeps power cycling. I also did 4.2 again and it didn’t help. Here is what I get though the serial port:


RouterBIOS-200 v1.3.8 MikroTik ™ 2003-2005

RouterBOARD 230 (CPU revision B1)
CPU frequency: 266 MHz
Memory size: 64 MB

Press any key within 1 second to enter setup..

Booting IDE…

SYSLINUX 2.08 2003-12-12 Copyright (C) 1994-2003 H. Peter Anvin
Loading linux…
Loading initrd.rgz…
Ready.

[PERPETUALLY REBOOTS LIKE THIS]

Any advice how to get my unit out of hell? I’ve obviously done something wrong even though I was dilligently following instructions as best I could.