Do not power the board via USB while doing this. The ST-Link provides power.
It worked. The brick had been rebuilt into a cobblestone. vcds 22.3.1 hex v2 clone repair
Confirm your cable has the ATmega162 MCU. Genuine HEX-V2 clones use STM32 chips; ATmega versions are actually "V1" hardware in a V2-style shell. Tools Needed: Do not power the board via USB while doing this
Erase the 25Q16 completely. Program it with a (size exactly 2MB for 25Q16). Verify the write. click Verify . If it passes
Perform a "Full Chip Erase" to remove the corrupted/blocked firmware.
Once writing is done, click Verify . If it passes, the hardware repair is complete.