How to recover Keysight 34461A bricked during firmware upgrade.

[Odd]

When upgrading to firmware 3.0 there was a power blackout and all firmware seems to be lost. I'm no longer able to access user interface. When switching on the DMM I get a message on screen and the DMM halts. Message below:

Instrument model number:   34461A
Instrument serial number :   MY5320.....
Instrument IP address      :   0.0.0.0
Follow support instructions to restore the firmware.

After this message the DMM halts.

This would seem fine except there are no "support instructions" to be found and I cannot access the user interface. I would like to think this is a matter of getting the firmware in place again but I don't know how to do that.
Any suggestions or ideas to get me out of this problem?

[engrguy42]

Contact Keysight? 

https://www.keysight.com/main/support.jspx?cc=US&lc=eng&cmpid=zzkeysupport

There's even an "Ask an Expert" link in the top right

Or ask in their support forum

And there's a link to download Drivers, Firmware, and Software

[wraper]

There are instructions which you did not read. Most likely you upgraded 1.x firmware to 3.x which you shouldn't do. You need to downgrade to 2.17 and then update to 3.02. https://www.keysight.com/main/software.jspx?cc=LV&lc=eng&nid=-11143.0.00&id=2367633&pageMode=CV

* NOTICE: Upgrading the 34460A and 34461A with firmware revision 1.xx to revision 3.0 or greater
34460A and 34461A DMMs with firmware revision 1.08, 1.09, or 1.10 currently installed must first be upgraded to revision 2.17 (see the ‘Previous Versions’ tab), and then upgraded to revision 3.0 or greater. Upgrades to 3.0 or greater (from 1.xx) cannot be done directly. If attempted, the DMM can be recovered by updating the firmware (to 2.17) from the front panel USB port. Select ‘Front Panel’ on the Firmware Update Utility to create the appropriate folder on a USB thumb drive.

[nixxon]

I have good reasons to believe that this particular instrument failed during an FW update from v. 2.17 to v. 3.0.
(I was very tempted to buy this very instrument myself, but decided not to do so. The odds of fixing it seemed to bad)

The mains power failed shortly after initiating the FW update procedure.

The previous owner has informed that "I’ve been in touch with local representatives for Keysight and they say that the repair cost equals the cost of a new instrument. It’s unbelievable. If it comes to that we will consider another instrument vendor."

As the keypad is not working it seems hard to update the regular way via USB flash drive. I would check out if it is possible to connect to the instrument from a PC via the front USB.

I would try to find a way to establish a connection to the instrument via LAN. This may be hard because LAN was probably never set up before the miserable FW update attempt.

If you are lucky you can get access to the part of memory NAND containing the firmware recovery file. See enclosed picture.

Here is a link to the last working FW v. 2.17 on this instrument if you want to attempt to restore FW v. 2.17
https://www.keysight.com/main/software.jspx?cc=GB&lc=eng&nid=-11143.0.00&id=2367633&pageMode=PV

I wish you the best and hope you succeed in fixing this awesome instrument.

Nixxon

EDIT: More info from previous owner:
" I have been updating the DMM ever since the first update and it has worked well. However, this time there was a power blackout right after update to V 3.0 was started. The DMM has two steps to get operational (as I see it). Step 1 is something like starting a BIOS and step 2 is loading the firmware. Now the DMM finishes step 1 and the then halts with the message shown earlier. This means I cannot access the front panel user interface. The DMM seems to be detected when connected to the USB interface but that doesn’t help much."