Firmware fail. What alternatives do I have to reflash my printer?

April 15, 2009 6:41 PM

I bricked my printer installing new firmware. The vendor-supplied flasher does nothing, but I believe I have the flash image. How can I get it to the printer?

Kodak EasyShare 5100 on Windows XP/Ubuntu. About a year ago I went to upgrade the firmware, found it taking far too long, interrupted the process, and was left with a printer that doesn't respond to its buttons. The power cord has a green light and the paper tray has a green light. Ubuntu's hardware information utility can let me see that there's a Kodak-made device on so and so USB port, but there's nothing else I can think to do.

I have a 7MB "mfp.rbn" file which came with the Kodak firmware utility which I guess is the firmware image. (I took a look with a hex editor and saw some Adobe PostScript-type text, seems printery)

What can I use to mount the printer's memory or otherwise flash the printer?

Hacky solutions welcome.

I know printers are cheap, and this one probably deserves to die, but I don't feel like I've done enough. Either hand me the rib-spreader or help me to let go...

posted by cowbellemoo to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

A lot of printers will just accept the flash file if you send it to the printer like a print job. But the USB-only nature of the printer might make this difficult. If it was me, I'd double check that you have the right flash file, and that it isn't corrupted. Then I'd do something like this:

cp firmware.name /dev/usb/printerdevice

YMMV, don't blame me, etc.
posted by gjc at 7:15 PM on April 15, 2009

This is overly obvious, but did you try contacting tech support? They offer an online chat.
posted by XMLicious at 7:22 PM on April 15, 2009

Response by poster: did you try contacting tech support

No. Forgive my hubris, but I think that Kodak courts non-fussy users and that if I wasn't able to find a fix on their website, their phone tech support is going to be a waste of time.
posted by cowbellemoo at 7:43 PM on April 15, 2009

Response by poster: eh, bought a new scanner to replace the one on the printer. I'll get a photo printer whenever. Oh well, I gave thrift the old college try.
posted by cowbellemoo at 5:56 PM on April 16, 2009