Bricked RoboRIO?

[thatnameistaken]

I suppose I'll get right to the point here. The status light is continuously blinking, which according to various documentation, means that something has gone horribly wrong and to contact NI.

Now, as to how it got this bad. After unboxing the thing, I pulled up the tutorial on imaging it from LabVIEW and followed the instructions. Great. Imaged fine. Reading on, I see there's an optional firmware update. I figure this would be a good idea as well, and attempted to update the firmware to the latest version. Something went wrong here, the exact message I don't remember, but I believe if memory serves it was rather generic. I'm a little perplexed by this, and I see there's no longer ANY firmware on it. Naturally, I try to upload the firmware again, this time it fails instantly. I decide the best course of action is to reformat and reimage it. It has errors actually uploading to image, and I start to get actually nervous. I try once more, same error. Having salvaged a seemingly bricked cRIO via safe mode before, I see the force safe mode option in the web dash (and I believe this is where I made a mistake)and check it. I reboot. I can no longer contact the RoboRIO at this point, via USB or ethernet. Rebooting doesn't change anything, holding reset doesn't change anything, I can't contact it. At all. Which is where I am now.

What I believe is happening, now that I've read more documentation in a desperate attempt to salvage it, is that safe mode is actually managed by the firmware; you know, the thing that got messed up? And since I checked the force safe mode option without thinking, it's now forced to boot into a mode it can't access. So things are bad.

So, reason I'm posting this here, is to gather from you guys what the best course of action from here is. I'm trying to contact NI, but I'm honestly having a hard time finding my way through their support system. Anyone have any insight/help?