Hi,
I had the same problem with a Ferguson Ariva 120HD box, I turned it on recently and 'ASH' was on the led display - nothing on screen.
I pressed a few buttons, tried the remote and nothing happned. Turned it on and off from the back and then there were random segements of the led display on, then eventually the display went totally dead.
I used a null modem cable and the 'STB EPROM Upgrade 2.0.0c' program to attempt to re-flash the boot-loader and firmware but it failed numerous times.. never got past the initialisation and to the point of downloading to the box. I got a 'STB memory error' or something very similar.
I must have tried about 30-50 times before it eventuall progressed a bit further and downloaded the firmware to the box.. then the next failure, at the 'Burning Image' stage.. it either failed straight away with a 'flashing is failed' error or the progress bar would move pretty slowly to somewhere between 15-30% before failing.
Eventually it flashed sucessfully (after another 20-30 tries) and the box restarted .. relief! 'On' appeared on the LED display. But after another few seconds the dreaded 'ASH' appeared again.. nearly threw it out the window.
After another 10-15 attempts at flashing I has another sucessful flash and it seemed to be working, channel scans etc seem to be working fine now and 24 hrs later the box is still working.
I suspect the my box may have a dodgy EEPROM or something, I'll keep an eye on it and let you know how it goes over the next few days/weeks.
So my advice for anyone with the 'ASH' problem or a completly dead box is to use an RS232 Flash utility, latest official f/w (2.17B3) and try & try (& try x50) again until the flash works!
Very happy with the features and functionality of the box otherwise.
Good Luck!
I had been using the patched f/w but flashed the original f/w.