E303 no HiLink access

[Gandalf]

Hi, I got an old Huawei E303 stick but I wanted to change the provider so I flashed with your tools an other firmware. Which worked great so far, connection etc. but one thing was really annoying. The stick wasn't even fast with the little options the provider UI had, but with the new firmware and all options it was extremly slow when you go through the options. I checked the stick with DC-Unlocker the installed firmware version was the same like the orginal from my provider but the Web-UI version changed from 11 to 12.

So I flashed an older firmware version to hopefully get an older and faster Web-UI version. That's were the problems begin. The older firmware was sucessfully flashed and the stick is normally recognized at my PC. But HiLink can't be started now. When the stick is plugged-in he is recognized as a virtual CD-Drive normally the software instalation would start and the browser would open with HiLink, but it doesn't.
Even with the normal IP 192.168.1.1 I can't acess to HiLink.

Is there any possbility to bring the stick into com/port-mode again, to flash the old firmware again ? I normally did it with 192.168.1.1/html/switchProjectMode but HiLink didn't work actually so I don't have access to that option. Or is the stick actually dead ?

[Vincentas]

Where in device manager you see your modem now? Or is is not recognized by computer at all?

[Gandalf]

Hello and thanks for your reply. The modem is shown under CD/DVD-Rom at the device-manager.
Here are some screenshots, the first shows the modem under "Computer" and the second one the modem under device-manager.

[Valdemaras]

If after installing items from current drive/cdrom that appears related to your modem in computer area does not bring it under network adapters or elsewhere then might be damaged device or driver issues, depends on how it will appear. I suggest you to fully reinstall it first on pc, launch installer from drive manually if it does not autorun.

[Gandalf]

So, I've tested the stick on a fresh installed Win7 32bit system. When I plug-in the stick it is recognized as drive/cdrom.

The software installation doesn't start by autorun, when I manually start the autorun.exe from the drive nothing happens. When I start the mbbServiceSetup.exe from the folder MovileBrServ, I get asked if I want to install the software. But nothing is happening when I click on yes, no software installation appears.

[Valdemaras]

So, I've tested the stick on a fresh installed Win7 32bit system. When I plug-in the stick it is recognized as drive/cdrom.

The software installation doesn't start by autorun, when I manually start the autorun.exe from the drive nothing happens. When I start the mbbServiceSetup.exe from the folder MovileBrServ, I get asked if I want to install the software. But nothing is happening when I click on yes, no software installation appears.

Then might be that you have damaged device during flashing.

[Gandalf]

Ok, is there anything left to try, maybe anything risky ? It doesn't matter anymore.

[Gandalf]

And it's working again.

What I actually did:
1. A clean install of Win7 32bit
2. install of the driver to bring the stick into com/port-mode, just before the stick was plugged-in the first time.
3. plug-in of the stick. It is now recognized as a modem instead of a cdrom-drive !
4. At least a new a flashing of the firmware and the WebUI/Hilink.
And it's normal working again.

The mistake I made with the firmware was the fact that I did flash a firmware beginning with the number 21. At my research I in the web I found the information that just the firmwares beginning with 22 are working with HiLink. All others like 21.... or 23.... are just for non HiLink devices and aren't able to start or work with HiLink.