Fixing Bricked Boards

Owned by Jack Greenwood, created
Last updated: 2022-11-11
3 min read

This article covers how to fix a bricked nucleo board. If you find an issue that hasn’t been covered in this document, please add the issue along with ways to fix it! Disclaimer: This article was initially written with the F401RE in mind, so problems on other boards might not be solvable through the below steps.

 

Before we Start

Before we do anything, you want to make sure you have the “STM32CubeProgrammer” https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stm32cubeprog.html, and “STM32CubeIDE” https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stm32cubeide.html software installed on your computer - the latter is not necessary but is convenient for flashing and debugging. In terms of hardware, you’ll want a STLinkV2 or STLink V2.1 programmer, like the one in the image below - there should be some lying around in the bay.

 

Why are you Here?

You’re probably reading this article because you get a pop-up similar to the following when you try to flash your board/connect to the programmer.

 

Board Setup

First, you will want to connect your board in the following fashion. In this case, the nucleo on the left will be replaced by the ST-Link module.

Note: Given the ST-Link on the F401RE is detachable, this method could also be helpful in flashing a board that had its ST-Link broken off.

Below is the implementation using the STLinkV2. Reference the above photo if the connections are not clear.

 

STM32CubeProgrammer

Now that our board is connected to our ST-Link, and plugged into our computer, we can get into resetting. Start by opening the STM32CubeProgrammer, and look at the menu on the right.

You might need to fiddle with the settings a bit, but when you click “Connect,” you should see something similar to the following.

Assuming you had a successful connection, navigate to the following icon on the left side of the screen.

Press yes when prompted if you want to erase full chip flash memory. You’ll see something like the following if this worked correctly.

And you’re done! You should now be able to flash your nucleo using the STM32CubeIDE. You may have to mess around with the debug settings, but it should be relatively straightforward.

 

Closing Thoughts

If you run into more nucleo flashing issues, please add them to this document!

 Related articles

A large part of this article was made possible from a post on ST’s forum. You may find the article here https://os.mbed.com/questions/7974/F401RE-Cut-off-ST-LINK/ - I would recommend viewing the response from user “Nothing Special.”