netinstall on RB951G - revert from OpenWRT

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Has anyone got experience going back to RouterOS from openwrt on a RB951G?
I can not seem to get it to work no matter what I try.

I have disabled the windows firewall, directly connected my laptop ethernet port to port 1 on the routerboard. no amount of different timing on the routerboard reset after applying power seems to get me to netsinstall. I have tried three versions of netinstall as well. The laptop is running windows 11.

what am i missing?
It has become a lot of work to save an old router from becoming more e-waste (i stayed on routeros in the end for routing abilities but moved other devices (zyxel) to openwrt successfully)

thanks

2

“Anyone…? Anyone…? Bueller…?" :laughing:

3

Did you follow this guide to the letter?
https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/Netinstall#Netinstall-InstructionsforWindows

4

Which may be (or not) part of the problem.

For some reasons netinstall can be finnicky, there are mainly two issues:

  1. whatever running on the laptop
  2. timing problem

The #2 can usually be solved putting a dumb switch between the laptop and the device, #1 is more difficult to troubleshoot, besides disabling other ethernet interfaces and disabling firewall, some manufacturer installed software (on laptops) may get in the way, see:
http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/on-the-reasons-for-winbox-not-connecting-to-mac-address-a-k-a-mac-telnet-not-working-from-a-windows-10-host/147631/1
You can try in Safe Mode, as most if not all third party services will be disabled.

5

If you are using Linux you could take the same route as I have.

Take a look at this thread and the last post, that solved my problem:

http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/trying-to-unbrick-my-rg750gl/165209/1