Cannot enter rommon Cisco 2821

[anonion]

Hello,

We are trying to do a password recovery on a Cisco 2821, however we are not able to enter rommon. We've tried "break", "ctrl+break" and "putty > special commands > break". None drop us into rommon.

The confusing thing is we've also tried to remove the compact flash and it won't drop us into rommon either! The router just keeps looping

Not sure if we're missing something obvious here but would would appreciate any suggestions.

[Richard Burts]

Is it possible that the router has been configured to disable password recovery? Can you boot the router and post all of the messages generated during the boot process?

If password recovery is disabled then you have a very short interval after the image is loaded to hit break and get a prompt that asks if you want to recover the router. It will not allow you to do a normal password recovery where you still have the config file, but will erase the config and then boot allowing you to access the unconfigured router.

[Leo Laohoo]

2821 has a compact flash slot. 

Eject the CF and reboot the router.