Fortigate 80C Flash problem solution

While the Fortigate 80C is pretty good UTM, some of the units has arrived with faulty flash which result in boot failures, configuration lost and you wasn’t able to use the log memory option that cause flash memory stress and led to failure.

The solution to solve this issue is to use USB disk drive instead of the built-in 8G.

First get a USB disk drive, I bought a SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16GB

Then open the case and locate jumper J15 (or J3 for newer models):

Put a jumper to short this connector:

Now the appliance will use the external USB instead of the built-in flash.

1. Plug the USB disk drive into one of the USB ports in the appliance

2. Connect your PC with serial cable to the console port

3. Connect network cable from the PC to port internal 1

4. Configure your PC with IP address 192.168.1.168

5. Copy a firmware file (image.out) into your TFTP server folder

6. Launch a TFTP server (tftpd32 for example)

7. Boot the appliance and follow the instruction to recover an image:

FortiGate-80C (16:50-09.27.2011) Ver:04000009 Serial number:FGT80C1483814587 RAM activation Total RAM: 1024MB Enabling cache...Done. Scanning PCI bus...Done. Allocating PCI resources...Done. Enabling PCI resources...Done. Zeroing IRQ settings...Done. Verifying PIRQ tables...Done. Disabling local APIC...Done. Boot up, boot device capacity: 14907MB. Press any key to display configuration menu... .. [G]:  Get firmware image from TFTP server. [F]:  Format boot device. [B]:  Boot with backup firmware and set as default. [I]:  Configuration and information. [Q]:  Quit menu and continue to boot with default firmware. [H]:  Display this list of options. Enter Selection [G]: Enter G,F,B,I,Q,or H: Please connect TFTP server to Ethernet port "1". Enter TFTP server address [192.168.1.168]: Enter local address [192.168.1.188]: Enter firmware image file name [image.out]: MAC:02050E8ACA1A ########################## Total 27567478 bytes data downloaded. Verifying the integrity of the firmware image. Total 40000kB unzipped. Save as Default firmware/Backup firmware/Run image without saving:[D/B/R]?D Programming the boot device now. ....................................... Reading boot image 1437434 bytes. Initializing firewall... System is starting... Resizing shared data partition...done Starting system maintenance... Scanning /dev/sda1... (100%)  Formatting shared data partition ... done! (Depend on your USB disk size it may take a little while...)   FGT80C1483814587 login:  admin Password: Welcome !