6509 - format slot0: fails

[kenchung321]

I'm trying to use a 64mb flash card in a Cisco6509 sup2 msfc2 - CatOS7.6(9)

how can i clear the flash and copy to it? - i've tried with different cards of the same type and same error messages

dir slot0:
error = -24
open device slot0 failed (bad device info block)

format slot0:
format device slot0 failed (can not find flash algorithm)

[cadet alain]

Hi,

Which product number is your flash card?

[kenchung321]

I am using a Cisco Compact Flash 64mb card into a SanDisk PCMCIA Adapter

[Mark Yeates]

I don;t believe that PCMCIA adaptors are supported and will work. You need to purchase a supported PCMCIA flash memory card for your switch to ensure it will work.

HTH,

Mark

[glen.grant]

  Is it Cisco purchased flash card ?   Some devices will only work with cisco flash cards  specially older catos boxes .

[ARMANDO ALVARADO]

Have you tried using the squeeze command first on the card if it works then do the format.

[madhu.kumar_2]

can you please try this and let me know if it works

STEP1 :6509#delete slot1:

       Delete filename []? c7200-js-mz.120-22.bin

       Delete slot1:c7200-js-mz.120-22.bin? [confirm]y

       After deleting the file above, you can squeeze the filesystem using the squeeze command.

STEP2: 6509#squeeze slot1:

       All deleted files will be removed. Continue? [confirm]y

       Squeeze operation may take a while. Continue? [confirm]y

       Squeeze of slot1 complete

       Note: The squeeze command is available starting from Cisco IOS software release 11.1.

       If your Cisco IOS software release is earlier than 11.1, you need to erase the entire Flash using the format

       command and then copy the image which was in the router before.

STEP3 :6509#format slot1:

       Format operation may take a while. Continue? [confirm]y

       Format operation will destroy all data in "slot1:".  Continue? [confirm]y

       Enter volume ID (up to 64 chars)[default slot1]:

       Formatting sector 1

       Format of slot1 complete

[kenchung321]

This is what I got when I try to format the card,

6509_1> (enable) 2010 Nov 29 22:53:51 %FILESYS-1-PC_REMOVE:PCMCIA flash card removed from slot0

2010 Nov 29 22:53:53 %FILESYS-1-PC_INSERT:PCMCIA flash card inserted into slot0

6509_1> (enable) squeeze slot0:

All deleted files will be removed, proceed (y/n) [n]? y

Squeeze operation may take a while, proceed (y/n) [n]? y

error = -24

Squeeze device slot0 failed (bad device info block)

6509_1> (enable) format slot0:

All sectors will be erased, proceed (y/n) [n]? y

Enter volume id (up to 31 characters):

error = -85

Format device slot0 failed (can not find flash algorithm)

Is that a PCMCIA Adapter with a cisco compactflash not work with 6509?

[amikat]

Hi,

for the case you are using 64MB ATA type of Flash PC card your device name would be disk0 instead of slot0, so can you please try "dir disk0:" and "format disk0:" and see if there is any progress.

Best regards,

Antonin

[madhu.kumar_2]

Flash memory ATA disks and Flash memory cards use similar commands. The primary syntax change is that disk0: or disk1: refers to Flash memory ATA disks, while slot0: or slot1: refers to Flash memory cards. Generally, use the syntax slot0: for Flash memory cards less than 20 MB,

and use disk0: for Flash disk greater than 20 MB. Keep in mind that there are 32 MB linear PCMCIA Flash cards where you use slot0:.

To see which Flash cards are used in your router, use the show version command and look at the bottom portion of the output.

7200# show version

IOS (tm) 7200 Software (C7200-JS-M), Version 12.0(22), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Copyright (c) 1986-2002 by cisco Systems, Inc.

Compiled Mon 01-Apr-02 19:44 by srani

Image text-base: 0x60008900, data-base: 0x610E0000

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 12.1(20000914:181332) [bwhatley-npe200 102],

DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE

BOOTFLASH: 7200 Software (C7200-BOOT-M), Version 12.0(5), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

cisco 7206 (NPE150) processor with 43008K/6144K bytes of memory.

R4700 processor, Implementation 33, Revision 1.0 (512KB Level 2 Cache)

Last reset from power-on

Bridging software.

X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.

SuperLAT software (copyright 1990 by Meridian Technology Corp).

TN3270 Emulation software.

1 FastEthernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)

125K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.

1024K bytes of packet SRAM memory.

46976K bytes of ATA PCMCIA card at slot 0 (Sector size 512 bytes).

!-- This indicates an ATA PCMCIA flash disk

20480K bytes of Flash PCMCIA card at slot 1 (Sector size 128K).

!-- This indicates a Linear PCMCIA flash card

[kenchung321]

6509_1> (enable) dir disk0:

No files on device

0 bytes available (63883264 bytes used)

6509_1> (enable) format disk0:

All sectors will be erased, proceed (y/n) [n]? y

Enter volume id (up to 31 characters):

Format device disk0 failed (Format failure - Drive Communication)

By the way, I think the card is in slot0: because the log "2010 Nov 29 22:53:53 %FILESYS-1-PC_INSERT:PCMCIA flash card inserted into slot0" showed when I insert the card

[kenchung321]

6509_1> (enable) dir disk0:

No files on device

0 bytes available (63883264 bytes used)

6509_1> (enable) format disk0:

All sectors will be erased, proceed (y/n) [n]? y

Enter volume id (up to 31 characters):

Format device disk0 failed (Format failure - Drive Communication)

By the way, I think the card is in slot0: because the log "2010 Nov 29 22:53:53 %FILESYS-1-PC_INSERT:PCMCIA flash card inserted into slot0" showed when I insert the card

[madhu.kumar_2]

do you have any files in the slot0: , try and see if you have any files dir slot0: and give the respective file name to delete those

check the part number of the card in cisco site and find out that is that supported on other SUP , if yes insert to other switch and try to delete, squeeze and format , if not you have to go for cisco TAG i think there must be some hardware issue

[amikat]

Hi,

In my view you are trying to use 64MB ATA (ie. non linear) Flash PCMCIA card which has NOT yet been formatted. If so, "disk0:" parameters should be appropriate. The point with the difficulties you are experiencing may be that for support of that type of flash you need at least Sup2 ROMMON version 7.1(1) or later. You can check your rommon version via the "sh ver" command, this is displayed under System Bootstrap heading (and also after FW: for the Sup2 card).

Best regards,

Antonin

[nallcott]

I found this post of interest. I have a 6905 that has the following SP/RP configuration:

Console> (enable) sho ver
WS-C6509 Software, Version NmpSW: 8.5(5)
Copyright (c) 1995-2006 by Cisco Systems
NMP S/W compiled on Jun 14 2006, 10:49:13

System Bootstrap Version: 7.1(1)
System Web Interface Version: Engine Version: 5.3.4 ADP Device: Cat6000 ADP Version: 8.0 ADK: 49
System Boot Image File is 'bootflash:cat6000-sup2cvk8.8-5-5.bin'
System Configuration register is 0x2102

Hardware Version: 3.0  Model: WS-C6509  Serial #: XXXXXXXXXXX

PS1  Module: WS-CAC-2500W    Serial #: XXXXXXXXXXX

Mod Port Model               Serial #    Versions
--- ---- ------------------- ----------- --------------------------------------
1   2    WS-X6K-SUP2-2GE     XXXXXXXXXXX Hw : 4.1
                                         Fw : 7.1(1)
                                         Fw1: 6.1(3)
                                         Sw : 8.5(5)
                                         Sw1: 8.5(5)
         WS-F6K-PFC2         XXXXXXXXXXX Hw : 3.3
                                         Sw :
3   16   WS-X6416-GBIC       XXXXXXXXXX Hw : 2.3
                                         Fw : 5.4(2)
                                         Sw : 8.5(5)
4   48   WS-X6148-RJ45V      XXXXXXXXXXX Hw : 1.2
                                         Fw : 5.4(2)
                                         Sw : 8.5(5)
         WS-F6K-VPWR                     Hw : 2.0
                                         Sw : 1.1(1)
15  1    WS-F6K-MSFC2        XXXXXXXXXXX Hw : 2.5
                                         Fw : 12.1(26)E7
                                         Sw : 12.1(26)E7

       DRAM                    FLASH                   NVRAM
Module Total   Used    Free    Total   Used    Free    Total Used  Free
------ ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ----- ----- -----
1      131072K  87713K  43359K  31232K  15429K  15803K  512K  259K  253K

It runs a hybrid configuration with CatOS 8.5 on the SP and IOS 12.1(26)E7 on the RP as shown above. I am having the following error when dealing with the PCMCIA flash:

2011 Apr 10 09:42:08 %FILESYS-1-PC_INSERT:PCMCIA flash card inserted into slot0

Console> (enable)
Console> (enable) format ?
  spare                      Spare
  <[m/]device1:>             First device
Console> (enable) format slot0: ?
  <[device2:][monlib-filename]> Second device ...
Console> (enable) format slot0:

All sectors will be erased, proceed (y/n) [n]? y
Enter volume id (up to 31 characters):
error = -1
Format device slot0 failed (unspecified error)
Console> (enable) format slot0

Missing colon for device id slot0
Console> (enable) dir slot0:
error = -24
Open device slot0 failed (bad device info block)
Console> (enable) 2011 Apr 10 09:44:42 %FILESYS-1-PC_REMOVE:PCMCIA flash card removed from slot0
2011 Apr 10 09:44:51 %FILESYS-1-PC_INSERT:PCMCIA flash card inserted into slot0

Console> (enable) dir slot0:
error = -24
Open device slot0 failed (bad device info block)
Console> (enable) format slot0:

All sectors will be erased, proceed (y/n) [n]?

Console> (enable) dir slot0:
error = -24
Open device slot0 failed (bad device info block)
Console> (enable) format slot0:

All sectors will be erased, proceed (y/n) [n]? y
Enter volume id (up to 31 characters):
error = -85
Format device slot0 failed (can not find flash algorithm)
Console> (enable) format slot0:

All sectors will be erased, proceed (y/n) [n]? y
Enter volume id (up to 31 characters):
error = -85
Format device slot0 failed (can not find flash algorithm)
Console> (enable)

As can be observed, I have purchased 2 third party MEM-C6K-ATA-1-64M and attempted to format both with the following errors shown above. Some of the documentation I have read says to use "disk0: or disk1:" to refer to the PCMCIA flash devices >20 Mbytes in size, however, these appear not to be recognized on the SP device, whereas "slot0: or slot1: does?? What conspires. Is this a IOS to CatOS conversion where the SP bootflash has not been reformated for CatOS and therefore this does not allow format of the PCMCIA flash?

Are there any 6509 experts out there that can help me out? The 6509 is working correctly, but I would like to be able to make provisions for a recovery if I run into problems in the future. This is task seems simple enough - leave it to Cisco to ultimately make it as complex as possible! Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.