I was very excited when I received my delivery of a brand new FEZ Domino… I tried doing what is basically the “hello world” tutorial and was unable to successfully upload the program to the board. So I after some reading around I find that you constantly have to update your firmware… firmware firmware… firmware… update the firmware… everywhere a firmware… so I decide to try this and I open up tera term and connect to my board… and in the directions it says to erase the data on the board (Capital E followed b Cap Y)… I did this and now my board is like a brick… I tried uploading the USBizi firmware from 4.1 like I’ve read all over the place, and every time I try, the upload is over in about 3 milliseconds and the terminal replies BAD FIRMWARE… now MFDeploy doesn’t even recognize the board… and I don’t even get to watch the wonderful default sketch or program with the blinky LED… I at least had that much going before… Please don’t tell me I spent all this money on a brick. I’m running windows 7 64 bit on an i7 920 if that makes any difference. any help is super appreciated.
I can see several potential problems with your attempts, but instead of using TerraTerm, why not use the Xmodem updater? This is a vastly easier, community driven FEZ “manager” which will allow you to update the firmware.
The file may be downloaded here:
http://ravenlabs.org/storage/TinyCLR/XmodemUploader.exe
Actually try with the new tool - FEZ Panel
[url]http://ravenlabs.org/storage/TinyCLR/FEZPanel.exe[/url]
Also I have noticed that sometimes the USB cable isn’t plugged very well and that could be problematic. Also don’t worry about bricking it, you cannot delete the GHI BootLoader so you can always re-flash the firmware.
I think the fundamental issue you have is you most likely did NOT select the “1K” option when uploading the new firmware in the XMODEM upload dialog box.
You need to go back into the bootloader (RESET and LDR buttons down on power on) and then connect in TeraTerm and re-upload it, making sure to use 1K (or you can try the other tool the folks above point out)
Also one finer point - you rarely have to update the firmware, but you do have to do it at the start to make sure you’re up to date.
Have watched the update firmware video? [url]- YouTube I bet you didn’t and if you did then you didn’t follow what it said 
I am sorry you are so frustrated but yes we point out that you need to update the firmware every where but you still didn’t do it at first and so you will have problems 
Just like this “BIG YELLOW” notice says [url]http://www.tinyclr.com/dl/[/url]
I know you are exited and just want to get to have fun with your FEZ but updating the firmware is extremely easy and very important. Maybe the firmware file is really corrupted so uninstall the GHI SDK and install it back.
Just watch the firmware update video and you should have no problems
Of course we are here to help so before you are frustrated, come here and we will step you through it
I did watch the video (after problems started) and was unable to follow the directions due to inability to communicate with MFDeploy.
I already tried uninstalling sdk and reinstalling. no avail…
I plugged in my domino into usb (not a hub) while holding both buttons down. Opened tera term, checked version number, and tried to upload.
here’s a tera term excerpt:
1.07
BL
Start File Transfer
CCCCCCCCCCCC
File Transfer Finished Successfully
Bad firmware
BL
BL
BL
BL
BL
BL
This is when attempting to upload the file:
USBizi_CLR.GHI
using XMODEM 1k. I watch the guy on the video and when he uploads, it takes a second or two and you can see the transfer progressing. On mine the download ends the INSTANT I click on send and I get what you see above.
I’m not trying to give you guys a hard time. It’s just a little frustrating because the thing was working (to an extent) when I first plugged it in… I can tell by the blinky program that it had running… and now it refuses to work at all. I’m going to try it on another computer, maybe that will do something for me.
hmm well I just had another look at the USBizi_clr.ghi file I’ve been trying to upload and it is 0kb so I’m guessing that has something to do with it. I’ll try re-downloading it again. how big is the file supposed to be?
Oh and thanks to all of you for taking the time to help me out. ! 
I got it to work, but you guys might want to make note of what happened.
As previously stated, when I looked at the file size in the tera term upload dialog menu, it read 0kb, but this time, after I downloaded a fresh copy, I looked at the file size in windows explorer and it said ~300kb… then back in tera term I tried again and the same thing happened. I looked at the file size in tera term’s dialog and it said 0kb… so I made a copy of the file, with a different filename and tried uploading that and the upload was successful. I have not tried anything beyond that yet but it is just… weird how that worked. anyway… thanks again for your support.
I got it to work, but you guys might want to make note of what happened.
As previously stated, when I looked at the file size in the tera term upload dialog menu, it read 0kb, but this time, after I downloaded a fresh copy, I looked at the file size in windows explorer and it said ~300kb… then back in tera term I tried again and the same thing happened. I looked at the file size in tera term’s dialog and it said 0kb… so I made a copy of the file, with a different filename and tried uploading that and the upload was successful. I have not tried anything beyond that yet but it is just… weird how that worked. anyway… thanks again for your support.
This is what you did wrong, instead of selecting “send file” you used “receive file” and so teraterm overwrote the file with an empty file 
Coping the file to a different spot has nothing to do with it
Anyway, I am glad it is working now 
mmm, seems like permissions - thanks for telling everyone!
The lock symbol meant there is some security access issue - when you did the copy, did you get prompted to elevate the security by any chance?
I doubt it Brett, his error is that he overwrite the file by selecting the wrong item in teraterm
I know this very well be cause it happened to me once :-[ Yeah yeah even experts can make such mistakes 
Making mistakes can happen to everyone. Glad you got it to work and that you can play with your new toy now
I did not overwrite the firmware file. In fact I uninstalled the SDK, ReDL’d it, Installed again, and followed the directions exactly. No doubt about it. The file shows the correct size in windows explorer, it is only in the term program where this anomaly occurs. I did not alter any security settings to my knowledge, except perhaps when prompted during the course of uninstalling and installing the SDK, which is SOP. One way or another, I got it to work, and I am 94.6% sure that it was due to copying the file and uploading with a different filename. at any rate… thanks guys
good to know
I got the same problem here. I just got the shipment from sparkfun and watched the youtube video and followed exactly what was instructed, using tera term, press X for file transfer mode and upload the firmware using XMODEM send and 1K. However I still get the “Bad Firmware” error and now my board couldn’t even ping.
Read previous answer and let us know what you tried. Check the firmware file to make sure its size is not zero
i reinstalled GHI SDK and reconfirmed that the file size is 335KB. I copied the file to the root of the hard disk and it still gives me “bad firmware”
What terminal software are you using?
Worth trying out the Fez Panel for upload as well:
(edit: removed incorrect link)