Catalyst 9300 Password Recovery

[cory.smith@rsmus.com]

I must be blind today because I cannot find any information about this. Can someone point me in the right direction?

[miuddin · Accepted solution]

Cory,

It is the same as Catalyst 3850.

Power cycle the switch. Immediatly press and hold the Mode button. Hold the button till the Status LED will go amber. Then on the console you should be in Boot Loader.

Switch:

Add the following variables.

Switch: SWITCH_IGNORE_STARTUP_CFG=1

Then boot the switch.

Switch: boot

Once the switch has booted you can copy the saved config back into the running config.

Switch# copy start runn

Next set your password(s). Finally we want to remove the variables we set while in Boot Loader.

Switch# no system ignore startupconfig switch all

Save your new config.

Switch# copy runn start

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Regards,

Minhaj Uddin

[cory.smith@rsmus.com]

Worked perfectly. Thank you!

[githesh07]

Thanks...I tried this and working fine.

[anderbri]

Pressing and holding the mode button does nothing for me, i have read other threads and the solution that has worked for me is after power cycling the switch just start pressing the mode button multiple times until you see "switch:"

[andreribeiro]

It works.
Thank you anderbri

[Ciscoguy007]

You must be running IOS XE (linux), in that case it's a little different, follow these steps:

Initializing Hardware...

System Bootstrap, Version 16.6.1r [FC1], RELEASE SOFTWARE (P)
Compiled Sat 07/15/2017 8:31:57.39 by rel

Current image running:
Primary Rommon Image

Last reset cause: SoftwareReload <---- Once you see this, start pressing and releasing the mode button 3 times
C9300-24U platform with 8388608 Kbytes of main memory

attempting to boot from [flash:packages.conf]

Located file packages.conf
#
#####################################################################

Unable to load cat9k-rpboot.16.06.02b.SPA.pkg
Failed to boot file flash:user/packages.conf
ERROR: failed to boot from flash:packages.conf (Aborted) <--- will abort
switch:
switch: <---- ROMMON

Now issue these commands: 

Switch: SWITCH_IGNORE_STARTUP_CFG=1

Then boot the switch.

Switch: boot

If it shows you error issue the same "boot" command again.

Thanks

Please rate helpful posts.

[kartgane]

Earlier procedure of continuously pressing the mode button didn't worked. This one described by

Ciscoguy007, procedure of pressing mode button 3 times, worked for my C9300-24T device.

Thanks,
Karthik

[Mlachake]

Ciscoguy007,

Thanks a lot.  The instructions worked out for me.  

Thanks

[commodorej]

the mode button press 3 times as described definitely works for 9300 48 UPoE - version 16.8.1r

[Mike Kir]

This process helped me!

[feizhang61813]

Thanks for sharing!

[Chris Russo]

this is the solution, holding the button does not work!

[bstalnaker1]

Anderbri -

Holding the mode button during bootup did not work for me either. Pressing mode during bootup did the trick.

Thank you. 

[ndr_eds]

same here, needed to press the mode button over and over, one steady press had no effect.....