Avaya 4850GTS-PWR+ firmware recovery

[Khaveer]

Hello. I've picked up an Avaya 4850GTS-PWR+ which wouldn't boot due to a failed firmware upgrade. I was hoping that it would be a simple case of downloading a new firmware package and uploading it, but it seems that the official download site is long gone/behind a paywall. I was able to find some images on a shady site but it seems that they are invalid or incompatible. Does anyone have a valid image for this switch?

Here's what I'm seeing on boot:

Booting...
Boot Version  5.6.0.8  Mar 02 2012, 09:50:07


## Magicnum check Failed


BOOTLOADER BREAK MENU




HorseshoeBay Bootloader  5.6.0.8


 1 - Download         Diag
 2 - Download         Agent
 3 - Download         Boot-Loader
 A - Continue Boot    Sequence
 B - Reset

Select:

 

[wifiholic]

Since Extreme Networks bought Avaya, I was able to find firmware up to version 5.12.6.007 for the Avaya ERS 4800 line of switches in the Extreme support portal. For what it's worth, it let me download the firmware despite not having a support contract for any ERS 4800 switches associated with my account, so you may be able to get it directly after creating an account.

 

[Khaveer]

Since Extreme Networks bought Avaya, I was able to find firmware up to version 5.12.6.007 for the Avaya ERS 4800 line of switches in the Extreme support portal. For what it's worth, it let me download the firmware despite not having a support contract for any ERS 4800 switches associated with my account, so you may be able to get it directly after creating an account.

Thanks. I've tried to create an account there yesterday but it seems that they're manually verifying each user. I'm not sure if I'm worthy enough to be approved.

EDIT: yeah, I'm not getting an account there. My switch was already assigned to whoever owned it before and I'd need a copy of the PO to transfer it to my account... I bought it in a lot from a recycler so there's no way I can get it registered...

EDIT2: Yup, apparently they do not want anyone byung their used products. I just got a response with a link to their "Grey market sales policy" https://cloud.kapostcontent.net/pub...arket-sales-policy?kui=L78h9wcZ53OzwGZwqqqXLw

 

[Khaveer]

Final update:

I've figured it out! The switch is extremely picky about the firmware versions. The diag image I found is called 4000_56201_combodiag.bin and it contains version 5.6.2.1, but the bootloader installed on the switch was version 5.6.0.8. When trying to install the diag image it kept showing an error:

## Bad Diag Version: 5.6.2.1

I couldn't find a full set of compatible images. But I was able to find the same version of bootloader that I had: 4000_56108_boot.bin. It turns out that the expected version is stored as plaintext next to the error string:
So I changed it to the version that I had and flashed the bootloader:

Remember that the version string should be null terminated!

At first nothing changed, but after a while I restarted the switch and I was able to flash the diag image. After the flashing process is over the boot process can be continued by pressing A in the HorseshoeBay bootloader. For me that was enough to boot the switch, I guess that at some point I've already tried to flash the agent image, but for reference the image I've used is 4000_562027s.img.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to attach firmware images here. If so please let me know and I'll upload them for future reference. For now I can provide checksums for the files I've used:
4000_56201_combodiag.bin
MD5: 323add70635458316a35bffa4469e7d3
SHA1: b74fbd8d0300da00472db5189336fb53fc7ae75f
4000_56108_boot.bin
MD5: 09a2d2af8d2cce5bcef43822424dd5b6
SHA1: a6dcd5f687cb99d0972a2e6ef92c31a8c1329e88
4000_562027s.img
MD5: cb1ec7dd0922ed6e08b8acaf40b85e1f
SHA1: 891feea72c319d657c833a5be6a0d7368e63c332

 

[wifiholic]

Wow, I'm sorry they were such jerks about [not] getting an account. I'm glad you were able to hack it into a working state anyhow!