Catalyst3750 bootloader upgrade loop

lldemeyer · ‎12-17-2007

I have upgraded a C3750G-12S from V12.2(25)SEA to V12.2(35)SE5 and at first sight the

upgrade was successfull. Rebooting after the upgrade results in the following :

"flashfs[1]: Initialization complete....done Initializing flashfs.

Checking for Bootloader upgrade.. upgrading.. writing boot sectors..

done.

The system will now restart."

And the switch restarts after which it does the same and restarts again and again always

with the same message... No way to get out of the restart loop.

Anay idea how to solve this problem ?

Extract:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

File "flash:c3750-ipservices-mz.122-35.SE5/c3750-ipservices-mz.122-35.SE5.bin" u

ncompressed and installed, entry point: 0x3000

executing...

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. 252.227-7013.

cisco Systems, Inc.

170 West Tasman Drive

San Jose, California 95134-1706

Cisco IOS Software, C3750 Software (C3750-IPSERVICES-M), Version 12.2(35)SE5, RE

LEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Compiled Thu 19-Jul-07 19:15 by nachen

Image text-base: 0x00003000, data-base: 0x01280000

Initializing flashfs...

flashfs[1]: 501 files, 7 directories

flashfs[1]: 0 orphaned files, 0 orphaned directories

flashfs[1]: Total bytes: 15998976

flashfs[1]: Bytes used: 10510848

flashfs[1]: Bytes available: 5488128

flashfs[1]: flashfs fsck took 2 seconds.

flashfs[1]: Initialization complete....done Initializing flashfs.

Checking for Bootloader upgrade.. upgrading.. writing boot sectors..

done.

The system will now restart.

Base ethernet MAC Address: 00:12:80:49:51:00

Xmodem file system is available.

The password-recovery mechanism is enabled.

Initializing Flash...

schmij01 · ‎12-17-2007

We had that happen to us with that same model switch. IIRC TAC has not yet resolved the case due to difficulties in finding a switch with an older bootloader.

Basically, the 12S' we had had 12.1 bootloader code on them. The upgrade to 12.2.35SE5 caused that loop. Other 12S' we have that shipped with newer bootloader code (12.2) upgraded just fine to 35SE5.

The in-house workaround is to break into the boot process and xmodem an older 12.2 image in to the switch (say the latest 12.2.25SEE). This will correctly upgrade the bootloader to 12.2 levels. You should then be able to load 12.2.35SE5. Or, just RMA the unit.