Router ROMMON issue

ChooseLife

Hi guys,

Not really a CCNA question, but I hope to get some help here...

I have done many password recoveries in the past, never had an issue until this one...

The problem with it is that it does not go into rommon mode, and instead reboots every time I send a break signal at boot. The break signal should be ok, as I used it multiple times on this box, but just to be sure, I have tried:

• 3 different cables (COM-RJ45, USB-RJ45)
• 3 different computers (Windows, Linux)
• 3 different terminal programs (HyperTerminal, Tera Term, minicom)

and they all produce the same result... I also attempted connecting on 1200-8-n-1-n and 2400-8-n-1-n and pressing spacebar to send a break signal, but that did not seem to work either.

Any ideas how I could make the router go into rommon?
It is an 871 with IOS 12.4(15)T5

SteveO86

Is it possible the password recovery/ROMMON feature was disabled on this router?

ChooseLife

Is that possible?

mikej412

Yeah, but you can get past it by resetting the router and losing the existing configuration -- which might include the no service password recovery command that's preventing the BREAK from working to get into ROMMON.

Cisco 850 Series and Cisco 870 Series Access Routers Software Configuration Guide - Troubleshooting [Cisco 800 Series Routers] - Cisco Systems

ChooseLife

mikej412 wrote: »

which might include the no service password recovery command

Thanks for that hint, looks like that was exactly it.

To fix it, I followed this instruction:
Cisco IOS Hints and Tricks: Last-resort password recovery
and got into rommon successfully, changed config-register, and then something went wrong, as at the next boot, after inserting flash module I received:

System Bootstrap, Version 12.3(8r)YI4, RELEASE SOFTWARE
Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 2006 by cisco Systems, Inc.

C870 series (Board ID: 3-14[IMG]https://us.v-cdn.net/6030959/uploads/images/smilies/icon_cool.gif[/IMG] platform with 131072 Kbytes of main memory

flashfs[0]: inconsistent sector list, fileid 2, parent_fileid 0
No bootable image file: flash:/
Unable to open boot file

Now this is what I get in rommon mode:

rommon 11 > dir

List of filesystems currently registered:

               flash[0]: (read-write)

rommon 12 > dir flash
unable to stat flash/: permission denied

ChooseLife

It looks like the IOS on flash got corrupted when I removed flash from the router. I have downloaded the IOS via TFTP in ROMMON mode and finally got this router 100% working.