I recently purchased a Netgear DG834GT ADSL Router from eBay, knowing that it was restricted with Sky Broadband’s custom firmware.
The reason for me doing this is that the router my ISP provides is absolutely dreadful, when I got it out of the box the firewall was disabled and there was no password to login to the admin web interface. The navigation through the interface when configuring the device is terrible. So you can see why I wanted to change it for something different.
Of the many different vendors’ I have tried in my time, I’m quite a big fan of Netgear products. I’d heard from a friend that the Netgear DG834GT that Sky supplies have custom firmware on them, and that they are locked down to prevent use with another ISP. Still, firmware can be changed cant it?! So I nabbed myself a bargain and purchased a Sky branded DG834GT from eBay for £30. After a quick Google it turns out that Netgear provide a utility for rewriting the firmware to the eeprom in the event of a user bricking their device when upgrading it through the web interface. I was also going to need the original Netgear firmware to flash over the top of the Sky firmware that the router was programmed with already.
Before I go any further in explaining how I flashed my Netgear DG834GT, with Netgear’s own standard firmware, you should take note that the following procedure may ‘brick’ or render your router useless (as happened to a friend of mine!). You flash it at your own risk!
Grab the following files from here:
Firmware version 1.02.13 (latest version at time of writing)
Firmware version 1.02.04
Recovery Utility
Now copy all 3 files onto a Windows XP computer, this is very important because the Netgear recovery utility does not work properly in Windows Vista. It results in a bluescreen when you try to flash the firmware and renders the router useless. If you are using Vista do not try to flash it.
Unzip the recovery utility to a new folder and copy the firmware file that you downloaded for version 1.02.04 (filename dg834gt_1_02_04.img) into the same folder as the files for the recovery utility. (The recovery utility automatically detects the firmware in the same location as the utility and uses this for the flash). So basically we are going to flash the router with version 1.02.04 of the firmware first. I have not tried flashing it with the newer firmware at this stage, all documentation I have read on flashing the router at this point uses version 1.02.04 to flash the device. (I will explain how to upgrade to the latest firmware later on). So you should now have a folder layout like this:
Plug the Ethernet cable from your Windows XP computer into one of the LAN ports on the router. Now plug the transformer for the Netgear router into the wall and turn it on, do not plug the power into your router at this stage. Now grab a pen or paperclip, hold your router with one hand and use the pen or paperclip to hold the reset button in on the back of the router and at the same time plug the power cord into the back of the device. Continue holding the reset button down for 3-4 seconds and then remove the pen or paperclip. Now look at the front of your router, you should see the two lights (the power and the test light) on the left hand side of the router flashing alternately. If they are not flashing alternately repeat the procedure until they are.
Now that the lights are flashing alternately on the front of the router, run the file RmDrv.exe in the Netgear recovery utility folder. Once you have run this utility run UpgradeWizard.exe to start the flashing process. Firstly click next to confirm you wish to upgrade the firmware for your router:
Secondly select the network card that you have in your Windows XP computer that has the Ethernet cable plugged into it. You may see more than one device here including wireless network cards and firewire cards. Click next when you have chosen the correct network card:
Now you will see a list of devices connected to the Windows XP computer through the network card that you chose on the previous screen. Since the router has not fully initialised (because the reset button was held in when the router was turned on) it will not have given your network card an IP address. So in this list you should see only a single MAC address of the Netgear router we want to flash. Click next to continue:
Now you are prompted to upgrade the firmware on the router. You will see a progress bar on the bottom of the screen, when it reaches 100% you know the flash has completed. Upgrade the firmware as advised. When I flashed my router it took about 5 minutes to complete the flashing process. When it was complete I turned the power to my router off, waited 10 seconds and turned it back on again.
When you turn the router back on access the admin web interface by typing the following URL into the browser of your Windows XP computer:
http://192.168.0.1
You will be prompted for a username and password. Sky’s default settings are as follows:
Username: admin
Password: sky
Try these to log into the router, if successful you will be presented with the Netgear admin web interface. If the above username and password do not work, turn the router over, and whilst it is still powered on, use the pen or paperclip to push and hold the reset button on the back of the router for 10 seconds. Now wait for the router to initialise (the lights on the front of the router will settle) and try login to the router using the same URL above and the default Netgear username and password:
Username: admin
Password: password
Now that you are logged into the router upgrade the firmware to the latest version (filename dg834gt_1_02_13.img) by browsing through the menu:
Maintenance -> Router Upgrade
Click the browse button within the admin web interface and find the latest firmware - dg834gt_1_02_13.img. Now click upload to upload the newest firmware on your Netgear DG834GT router. Once this completes you may have to log into the router again using the same username and password as you did previously. Check that your router is running the latest firmware by browsing through the menu:
Maintenance -> Router Status
The firmware version should be the same as the version you just uploaded to the device. Your Netgear DG834GT is now running the latest version of Netgear’s own firmware and the device will work with any ISP, including Sky.
One last note, If you had to login to the router using:
Username: admin
Password: sky
You will probably want to reset your router back to its factory default settings by using a pen or paperclip to push and hold the reset button on the back of the router for about 10 seconds whilst the device is powered on.
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excellent guide - thankyou so much for this!
excellent guide, worked first time. Many thanks
I bought a dg834gt not knowing it was locked to sky.This is an excellent guide,worked a treat & very quick , thanks
Your a Complete Genius, Thanks so much for the Guide! it was simple, Straight forward quick & easy, Your a Legend Many Thanks!
Hi I bought a sky dg834gt without knowing it was locked to sky, I have followed your instructions to the letter but the upgrade will not work for me, in the blue windows I have screens over imposed on each other and when I select upgrade the 0 - 100% bar does nothing, any ideas?
Hi Nigel, I also experienced this when I was testing the process in VMWare Workstation. At the time I did research the issue and seem to remember there being a problem with a computer driver. I would suggest trying it on an alternative computer.
hi all just to say man your the best i’ve got my one up and running now i can bin that bt home hub and just to let you all know i have just put the new Version 1.02.13 on my modem and all is fine
Hi JJ,
Many thanks for the info. I followed your instructions and had not the slightest trouble.
I now have a “Sky” unit I can use with any ISP.
You are a star. Cannot thank you enough
HI Well done mate have been looking for this.
Cant believe SKY wont let customers update their routers with vital firmware updates.
oh my god, you dont know how much i appreciate this.. there are loads of sites claiming to do this, you are the only one that has worked, thanks!!!
Hi Nigel,
You can upgrade using Vista, just make sure that you run both apps in xp compatibility mode and use the ‘run as administrator’ command. I done this succesfully. Cheers for you help.
Scott
Fantastic… Well done. I carried out your instructions to the letter and had absolutely no problems whatsoever. I now have a cheap Router from Ebay thanks to you.
Many thanks Alpha Foxtrot
DG834GT UNLOCK. Like everybody else, thanks for explaining in understandable language how to delete Rupert M. I too now have a top router at a budget price
Absolutly brilliant!
I can’t and don’t need to say more
Thanks
a1 mate will recomend everyone i know works great
Thanks to your step by step instruction I now have a cheap (ex Sky) DG834GT wireless modem/router that will work with any ISP.
You are the man
Thanks for the Vista help too Scott!
I am so pleased with your guide, it is brilliant!!!!!!!!!!. You have managed to help me recycle my brand new sky netgear router which I never used. God Bless you. I had spent so many hours on it sunday night and never got it working but just 15-20 minutes yeaterday and it was cracked.
Oops…i messed it up !!!
I took Scott’s advice on running this utility on a vista machine in XP compatability mode and screwed it up.
I don’t blame Scott though, its because of my stupid Dell machine i guess…i reached the stage when I had to click on upgrade…and the moment I did that I saw an error saying “a unexpected error occured…restarting your machine”….and that was the end of my router.
Obviously the machine crashed at the time when the EEPROM was erased/being erased and now I simply cannot do it all over again for the simple fact that there is no MAC address ahown in the list of devices when u run the upgrade tool.
Can someone think of a way I can still continue with this and give a new lease of life to my router???
Hi, when I went to the device list it doesn’t find any.
Any solutions?
Thanks
If the device list is empty make sure the lights are flashing as per the instructions. I was too eager and didn’t check the lights and saw an empty device list. I tried again and it worked perfectly.
Many thanks for these instructions - I was given a Sky router which Sky had diagnosed as not working so I wasn’t expecting too much. I was able to update the firmware to version 1.02.04 then to 1.02.14 which is the latest (after updating to 1.02.04 the default Sky & Netgear passwords did not work initially so I reset with a paper clip - I had to do this twice then the Netgear password worked so persevere!!). I’ve now replaced my old DG834 with this & it’s working fine on Tiscali. Once again thanks very much for posting this
Thanks. I updated using a Windows 2000 Pro laptop. The firmware update took over an hour and was successful. Now the router has V1.02.09 - DGTeam Rev. 0743 firmware installed and its running well on Be* Unlimited.
Worked No problem, Thx verry much!
I was in a bit of a rut after buying a DG834GT on ebay, but your guide made the upgrade a breeze. Thanks so much.
spot on matey boy runs a treat and best of all my ports forwarded unlike wen i was with sky and there setting so now i can host network games on it ta very much
Does anyone know if i can do this with my mac osx? thanks
all good on the old one the DG834GT but sky now have the new black one out any one know how to unlock this one….?
hi - great guide and have followed this and other guides to the letter for the last few weeks - but keep getting stuck in the recovery utility. It just does nothing whatsoever when I click Upgrade on the last screen. Reading on here that someone’s took 1 hour to upgrade maybe I am being to hasty - how long does the progress bar take to move from 0%..?
Hi Tim. I have heard from some people that there have been problems with certain network card drivers being used. When I flashed my router it took approximately 5 minutes to update it and the progress bar moved steadily across the screen. If you are having problems at this stage of the flashing process it almost certainly sounds driver related. I would suggest trying the process on another (different) pc or laptop although my first instinct would be to actually check if there are newer drivers available for the NIC on the computer you are using.
Although I never mentioned this in the blog, I actually tried this to flash my router by running the application(s) in VMWare Workstation first of all. I had similar problems to what you are experiencing, including the application UpgradeWizard.exe actually not being able to display the progress bar properly. Needless to say I ended up flashing my router directly (no VMWare) as above and didn’t experience any problems at all.
Hi,
I don’t usually post on forums but someone might find this helpful. A friend of mine needed a second router because the lack of wireless coverage in his home. He purchased a Sky DG834GT from
an online auction and the plan was to extract his username/password from his original Sky router and setup the new Sky router with latest official Netgear firmware.
So I needed to extract the username/password from his original Sky router, which I’ve done in the past on my own router via the URL injection hack. The only problem is, the latest Sky firmware (V1.03.87) has stopped this method from working. After a lot of searching on different websites/forums, I didn’t really find an answer. So I used the Sky CD that came with my router and downgraded the firmware from V1.03.87 to V1.02.28 via the Web interface - Router upgrade page and selected the older image file. This went through the normal process and completed fine.
I could then extract his username/password via the URL injection method.
On his new router which he had just purchased, I followed the instructions on this site and came into problems with upgradewizard not displaying information correctly and hanging. As other people have said, this seems to be a hardware/driver related issue. I tried it on two different PC’s that have different NIC’s and drivers, I also tried VMWare but they all had the same problem. I dug out an old laptop and tried it on there and when I got to the selecting device it actually displayed a valid MAC address, which none of the other machines did. After this, the router was then upgraded to the latest official Netgear firmware (dg834gt_1_02_14.img) and has been running fine since.
Just wanted to say THANKS to everyone who has contributed to the above information and hope my experience can help someone else.
Superb - was pulling my hair out until I found your walk through!
Absolutely immaculate. Smooth as Silk ! Done in 4 minutes straight with 1.02.14 now the new FW. Happy with Talk Talk now from Sky.
thanks for the help. it was alot better than the site that says an idiots guide to unlocking sky netgear. I am a computer technican and the idiots guide wasn’t for idiots
Excellent guide — works a treat with talktalk (remember to change the mtu to 1400)
ive re-flashed it and it appears to work fine as a network router, i just cant get it to connect to wanadoo bband, any ideas i put in correct username and password etc
Excellent, worked a treat. Picked up an Ex-Sky router from Ebay for £15 and am very content.
You are a genius - can finally escape the clutches of Sky!
The new Sky black DG934 router can be “upgraded” to non-Sky firmware by working through the instructions on this thread here
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/technical-discussion/20880-dg934-hacked-running-official-netgear-firmware.html
I bought a DG934 for £5 + £5 postage on eBay and now have an “unlocked” router with the latest Netgear firmware up and running 100%
As they say in the movies, the answer is out there
Add to the above - the poster “digitaldazz” has the answer, read each of his posts - one of them has a concise set of instructions distilled from all the chat in that thread.
Good luck and enjoy.
Fantastic, worked perfectly using Windows XP (does not work with Vista). Thank you very much. A****
Hi
Sorry about this very noob! I just picked up one of these from ebay. Is this procedure done while my computer is connected to the internet via my own router? Or do I remove mine and connect the Netgear to my phone line?
Pete, remove all network connections of any kind from your computer. Then plug a network cable between your computer and the new Netgear router you wish to flash. The Netgear router doesn’t need to be plugged into your phone line. Just make sure that the only networking devices connected are your pc and the router.
Hello JJ,
thanks for the time in recording all this info.
Went through your instructions and got to the “access the admin web interface” but cannot get to it. Do you just type in “http://192.168.0.1″ and just search, or type it in the Run box, and search?
I am trying to use the Netgear with Virgin media broadband. The connections I have are 2 standard Ethernet cable connections to the computer and to the back of the router, both are plugged into 2 out of the 4 standard sockets. Do I need to have the Virgin modem box plugged into the grey router socket?
Also the Firmware version 1.02.04 file has the G clamp icon in the middle file icon instead of the 6 picture file icon. Is that still ok, they are all in the same folder, as per your instruction.
regards,
Richard
Managed to flash router and it appears as NETGEAR in my list of available networks. My netgear laptop card says its connected to NETGEAR. NETGEAR says it’s connected to wireless network, but it won’t let me access any internet pages. Asks me to check my connection.
Box lights are Power on, Wireless - flashing, No 1 on (cable still connected) any ideas please?
I’m on BT.
Hi
Most helpful instructions, only problem is, it doesn’t work!
I’ve been trying to flash a sky dg834gt, as per your instructions, but keep failing at the point where I should see a device. If I flash the router with the current sky firmware (1.03.87, as it came installed with) the device appears and it runs without any problem. However if I try any of the netgear firmware versions the device doesn’t appear. Reading all the posts I get the feeling that I need to roll the sky formware ver back to 1.02.28, and then flash to a netgear version. Any ideas where I can get 1.02.28? I can’t find it on the sky user web.
I’ve even tried renaming a netgear img to the same as the sky one, no joy; tried using the sky img file to get a device and then swappingthe file for a netgear one (using same name), but no joy.
It seems that the latest sky firmware is specifically designed to stop anyone from changing to a netgear version.
Any suggestions?
I’m having the same issue as Rob. i’ve tried it in so many diff ways. usin Vista, altho was advised by yourself not to and in Xp.
oh rob, you wont be able to use Firmware 1.02.28 to flash the sky router back, it wont let ya, its locked to sky
i think i have to agree that the most recent Sky firmware V1.03.87 has completly locked you from flashing it!
Anyways, i’ll keep tryin diff things to Flash this and if i find out will let uz know.
Andy
Good news, managed to get rid of the rotten sky firmware.
What I did was download a 3rd party firmware from:
http://dragonslight.altervista.org/ubergt/index.html
Go to the download tab and download the latest: Firmware 1.02.09.UberGT1.06 BETA 4 (file name is UberGT1-06-beta4.img). Copy the download img file into the netgear recovery dir, and run as per the instructions at the top of this thread. A device was found first time and the box was reflashed successfully.
Then log onto the router, remembering that the login/pwd is now admin/password. You should get the full menu.
You can stop at this point, as this firmware is good to go, and has some extra settings, for mail servers I believe.
Personally, I then went on and ran an updrade from the netgear/uberGTI menu, browsed to a previously downloaded official netgear img (I used dg834gt_1_02_14.img), and upgraded the firmware to this. Why oh why couldn’t it have been this easy when I was trying last week? Damn you Sky!
Hope this helps.
Cheers Rob.
p.s. pc is running XP
Hi,
Many thanks for this - mother-in-law moved from Sky to TalkTalk and wanted to use the Sky router instead of paying £30 for a new one from TalkTalk.
Worked an absolute treat. Followed the instructions precisely and it’s great.
Many thanks
Dave
I have followed your instructions on two different “sky” units. Both have given the same response. After I’ve run the RmDrv file I start the upgrade wizard. The first blue confirmation screen comes up, I click OK and a little box pops up stating “Open Registry Fail”. Any answers to this please?
Myk, it sounds to me like you do have administrator privileges on your computer. Make sure the user account you are logging onto your computer with is a member of the administrators group.
Thanks for the intsructions. They seemed to work perfectly. I carried out the ‘flashing’ on my old XP PC and once completed tried to use the router on my new Vista laptop. The laptop is talking to the router perfectly OK but the router is not connecting to the internet. Did it just not work or did it brake the router? I am not very technical and am lost. Can you help please?
Thanks James but I have just checked my user account and I have full admin privilages.
Great guide and easy to follow. The problem is that after I ran the utility all the way to the end it says ‘Upgrade failed’. and now all the router does is blink its green and orange light alternatively.
Is it bricked? I tried running the utility again but it can’t find the device anymore. I tried the renaming a DG834PN firmware trick but that doesn’t work.
Any suggestions? Thanks
Steven, what operating system did you use to flash the router? Did you use VMWare workstation? I’ve only ever seen a friend brick a router when he used Vista to flash it hence the note in the guide not to use Vista. Can you also tell me what lights are flashing?
Actually I tried it again on a Vista laptop with the DG834PN firmware and it worked! So the moral of the story is to try as many computers as you can (I tired 4) and using this firmware if the device list won’t recognise the router.
Here is what I did.
Placed the 834PN firmware in the utility folder and renamed it firmware.img. Followed the instructions to the device list. Do not press next. Delete the firmware and put in the real 834GT firmware (renamed to firmware.img) into the folder. Then upgrade as usual.
Yay.
absolutely fantastic! I’ve been given a sky dg834gt and have been looking for a way of getting it working. I’m just going to give the whole thing a try now (nothing ventured nothing gained)
Absolutely brilliant!! Sky sent me two 834GT’s originally as the guy in India decided that the first one they sent me was faulty. I didn’t bother to send the first one back, put in the loft for a year or so, it was only when a friend wanted a wireless Modem/Router that I thought I would take a look on Google for a hack. This was far the best set of instructions I found and it worked, not at first but I read through the comments and note the issue with some computers. Tried another computer and worked like a dream. Its happily working on TalkTalk broadband. Thanks again
Cheers James, I followed your guide a couple of weeks back on a Sky DG834GT I got from an online forum. Worked Perfectly first time!
I’d recommend the DG Team firmware (that’s what I stuck on mine). Some great features, best one for me being the SNR margin adjuster.
Hi Laurence. I totally agree that the Uber GT Firmware is by far the best I’ve seen for the DG834GT. My ISP is BeThere and I also use the firmware to adjust my SNR and slightly lower my download speed for a more stable connection.
Thank you James. Following an ebay purchase of a Sky DG834GT and an awkward night, last night, trying to set it up on my girlfriend’s PlusNet DSL, you’ve saved my skin today. Happy girlfriend, happy me!