pix 501 password recovery issue

[silk]

hi there,

I have a pix 501, unfortunately the password got lost and, believe it or not, while attempting the password recovery procedure I discovered that the console port is not working.

Is there any way to do a hardware reset or something to reset it to factory defaults?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[rusty]

Not sure this will help, but the question would be is the console port not working at all, or only after it gets to the active config and is disabled?

If you reset the 501 with a terminal attached to the console port do you see bootup messages, or does it remain blank. (as part of this have you confirmed that the terminal works on another device that is known to be working?)

If you get bootup messages, you should be able to use the instructions over at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/vpndevc/ps2030/products_password_recovery09186a008009478b.shtml to perform password recovery by pressing 'Esc' before the config is loaded.

If you do not get messages during bootup on a console connection you may be out of luck. There may be a sdram flush feature, but I am not aware of one for nvram.

-Rusty

[silk]

Hello,

first of all thanks for your attention.

let's get to answers:

unfortunately I dont get ANYTHING from the pix console, not a bit, not a spurious character, it appears to be just dead.

At the moment I'm attempting (still without any luck) to brute force the password, and hoping that a hardware reset could be possible.

Thanks anyway :)