Router bootup press RETURN to get started: nothing happens

peter.conings · ‎06-08-2004

Hi,

Have some old 2501 routers to practice. On two of them afer bootup he sais 'Press RETURN to get started'. But after hitting return this doesn't do anything???? Any possible cause or how to fix this?

System Bootstrap, Version 5.2(8a), RELEASE SOFTWARE

2500 processor with 4096 Kbytes of main memory

F3: 4018148+53544+224688 at 0x3000060

Restricted Rights Legend

Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government is

subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph

(c) of the Commercial Computer Software - Restricted

Rights clause at FAR sec. 52.227-19 and subparagraph

(c) (1) (ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer

Software clause at DFARS sec

cisco Systems, Inc.

170 West Tasman Drive

San Jose, California 95134-1706

Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software

IOS (tm) 2500 Software (C2500-I-L), Version 11.2(2), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Compiled Wed 13-Nov-96 07:37 by ajchopra

Image text-base: 0x030217A4, data-base: 0x00001000

cisco 2500 (68030) processor (revision A) with 4096K/2048K bytes of memory.

Processor board ID 01088436, with hardware revision 00000000

Bridging so

X.25 software, Version 2.0, NET2, BFE and GOSIP compliant.

1 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)

2 Serial network interface(s)

32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.

8192K bytes of processor board System flash (Read ONLY)

Press RETURN to get started!

%LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Ethernet0, changed state to down

%LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial0, changed state to down

%LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial1, changed state to down

*Mar 1 00:00:06: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Ethernet0, changed state to up

*Mar 1 00:00:06: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Serial0, changed state to down

*Mar 1 00:00:06: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Serial1, changed state to down

*Mar 1 00:00:09: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from memory by console

*Mar 1 00:00:09: %SYS-5-RESTART: System restarted --

Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software

IOS (tm) 2500 Software (C2500-I-L), Version 11.2(2), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Compiled Wed 13-Nov-96 07:37 by ajchopra

*Mar 1 00:00:09: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Ethernet0, changed state to adminis

tratively down

*Mar 1 00:00:09: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Serial0, changed state to administr

atively down

*Mar 1 00:00:09: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Serial1, changed state to administr

atively down

Thanks

Peter

david.bradley · ‎06-08-2004

Hi,

what you've posted here looks normal, it's just appears that the configuration is blank.

You sould see a > prompt ?

Dave

Richard Burts · ‎06-08-2004

There are a couple of things that might cause symptoms like this. One that occurs to me is that someone may have configured the console with no exec. This command will prevent an exec (user) session from running on the console and will produce exactly the symptoms you are experiencing. I have seen this occur when someone configures:

line con 0

no exec

and what they thought they were doing was abreviating the command no exec-timeout, which will not time out the console for inactivity. However what they entered is a valid configuration command, not an abreviation.

There is an easier way and a more difficult way to check for this. The easier way is to connect your workstation to the aux port and see if you can log in to the router. If the aux port is active, you should be able to log in and get into privilege mode, and then check the router to see is the console has turned off the exec process.

The more difficult way is to go through password recovery and set the config register to 0x2142 and reboot. This will bring up the router with an empty config while your real config is still in startup. If you can get to privilege mode then you can check the startup config and see if the console has turned off the exec process.

If you find that the console has turned off the exec process, then you will need to start it.

HTH

Rick

peter.conings · ‎06-09-2004

Hi,

Thanks already for your advice.

Indeed managed to get in via Aux, did a show run and saw:

line con 0

exec-timeout 30 0

password xxxxx

login

line aux 0

exec-timeout 30 0

password xxxxx

login

transport input all

line vty 0 4

exec-timeout 30 0

password xxxx

login

Didn't see a 'no exec' command. Thought to be smart and did a Erase startup. When I restarted he asked me if I wanted for the Initial configuration but I am not able to use my keyboard :-(. Also tried some break sequence keys to get in Rommon or so but even that won't work. Via Aux, I don't see anything anymore... Seems even worse now :-(. Still any idea?

Thanks a lot

Peter

Richard Burts · ‎06-09-2004

The fact that you are getting output on the terminal screen but input seems not to work (and no exec is ruled out) makes me think that the most likely explanation now is a hardware problem in the console port. Is this router under a maintenance contract?

Other things that you can try would be to try a different console cable and/or try a different PC to see if the problem is possibly in them. The fact that the cable and the PC worked ok on the aux do not give me optimism about these alternatives, but they are things that you can try.

Unfortunately with no config in the router the aux port does not work nor do any of the network interfaces. So I do not know of anything that you can do till the console gets fixed.

HTH

Rick

peter.conings · ‎06-09-2004

Hi,

All working finally :-). Used Tera Term in stead of hyperterminal from MS, installed latest IOS and now everything seems to be fine. I'm a bit surprised that in the config you didn't see 'No Exec'. If Exec is the default I would think you should see No Exec in the config.... but maybe it was MS hyperterminal as it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.

Anyway thanks a lot for your help. Would have never found Exec command at line console 0

Petr