C881 Router stuck in recovery mode?

[Shanej9001]

I've got a Cisco C881-K9 router. Older end of life model. Surplus equipment. I had plans to brush up on my IOS config skills. It appears to be stuck in IOS recovery mode by looking at the errors below:

boot: cannot determine first executable file name ondevice "flash:"

% No valid customer configuration file found

% Aborting loading of customer configuration

There is no running startup config. I've erased it and done a reload without success. I've attached the console log below.

Thanks in advance.

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

did you try the password recovery procedure (link below) ? I am afraid that is your last option, if that doesn't help, the router is most likely bricked...

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/routers/800-series-routers/12065-pswdrec-827.html

[Shanej9001]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion. I gave it a try and ended up with the same result. It appears the unit is bricked.

Thanks for your help anyhow.

[Georg Pauwen · Accepted solution]

Hello,

thanks for the update. I don't like giving up on stuff, but the EoL date for this device is 2014, so chances are your router is >10 years old. Which most likely means that indeed it is broken.

[pieterh]

Reset Button pressed during boot up

if this is not your doing, then maybe the reset button is stuck?

[Shanej9001]

Good suggestion! I thought that might have been it. I just push cycled the little button a few times. I can hear the clicking when I depress it so I'm pretty sure now the unit is bricked. 

Thanks for the suggestion.

Shane

[Shanej9001]

Yeah I hate to give up on this also. It was a given to me free but I suspect its bricked. I was hoping to use it to brush up on my IOS skills. It is a nice little fanless unit. Anyhow thanks for your help on this!

Shane

[GarryG]

Just had this problem on an 886VA ... I was able to fix it by doing a "erase nvram:" twice ... after doing a "write" I could see that the nvram "startup-confg", which remained valid both on "reload" as well as power cycle ...