Its hot here in Tropical Buffalo NY and the overheated telcom room took out another compact flash on our Stratagy Brick!

My problem is when I attempt to connect with the admin software via my null modem cable I get this error "unable to right status while initialize the modem"

I am using the same laptop, admin software and cable that I used last year to reload the compact flash software. Is there a step I am missing?
Thank you, Ken