Factory resetting a 3750?

[Strahan]

Hi!

I bought a Catalyst 3750-E WS-C3750E-48TD-S from eBay for $25. I was actually at their warehouse picking up a printer and saw it sitting there and figured hell, 48 gig ports for $25? Heck yea lol. I know jack about Cisco though, I've never touched IOS or any sort of managed networking equipment. I got home, fired it up. Once it was done booting, it seems to work fine as a dumb switch.

I do want to delve into some of the features I have access to now with a layer 3 switch, so I hooked up a console cable and got a login prompt. I tried admin/admin, cisco/cisco, admin/cisco, cisco/admin, all to no avail. So I assume it has a config on from whomever used it last.

I read online to unplug it, hold in mode then plug it in. Wait for the SYST to flash amber, then let the button go and it will be in a state where I can reset things. However, that doesn't seem to work for me. I tried it all sorts of ways:

1. Unplug, hold mode, plugin, wait for the first amber flash of SYST then release

2. Unplug, hold mode, plugin, wait for the first amber flash of SYST, then it goes back to green, then it goes to amber again, then release

3. Steps 1 and 2, but pressing and holding mode after plugging in

4. Unplug, hold mode, plugin, then wait... forever. Eventually all the front panel lights shut down and stay dark until I release mode, at which point SYST resumes flashing

None of that got me to the screen I saw on the tutorial videos. (rommon I think it's called?). What am I doing wrong? Does this 3750 require some special trick, or did I perhaps buy something with an issue?

Also is it normal for these switches to take four and a half minutes to go from plugging in to being done booting? That seems like a terribly long time.

Thanks!

PS in one video I saw what looked like a POST being sent over the console, but when I boot up my 3750 I see nothing in the console until it's done booting and I get the username prompt. Is that normal?

PPS I read in the product paper that the slots on the right are for 10GbE. Does that mean I could buy 10GbE transceivers and have my file server and main workstation on 10 gig? Obviously I'd need cards in the machines too, but would that work? That'd be awesome

[marce1000]

  - Post a screenshot that show 'how far' it has currently booted and what you are seeing (?)

  M.

[Strahan201]

Hi.  I didn't get a screen shot, but I made a video showing the whole process (https://youtu.be/RdOkZ2Vynlw)

[Strahan201]

This is weird.  Someone on Reddit told me to check terminal settings.  I went back to the PC connected to the switch and hit enter to verify that it is connected, and instead of the looping banner thing I had before, it's at a "switch:" prompt.  So I don't know what happened, but it magically decided to start working lol.

Thanks!

[amikat]

Hi,

The password recovery/factory reset procedure for your box should be initiated as follows:

Reconnect the power cord to the switch. Within 15 seconds, press the Mode button while the System LED is still flashing green. Continue pressing the Mode button until the System LED turns briefly amber and then solid green; then release the Mode button.
Several lines of information about the software appear with instructions, informing you if the password recovery procedure has been disabled or not.

Do you get any console output at all?

Thanks & Regards,

Antonin

[Strahan201]

That's a little different than what I was doing, so I tried that (https://youtu.be/kczVPaVnQhQ).  Still having the same issue though.  The console does show output when it's done booting - it shows the prelogin banner but then loops.  Nothing during startup.

[amikat]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. From your youtube videos I have noticed that you do not get any booloader console output, ie. before the IOS is loaded (login banner). What comes to my mind is that the console baud rates for bootloader and IOS MAY be different, ie. not synchronized. Users usually tend to increase the bootloader/rommon baud rate when using xmodem. You MAY consider to change your terminal emulator (eg. putty) baud rate starting from the higher values (115200, 57600, 38400, ...) and repeat the factory reset/password recovery procedure and check whether you can finally get the "switch" prompt.

Best regards,

Antonin

[Strahan201]

Thanks, dropping to 9600 made it happy

[Strahan201]

This is weird, it made me change my name.  This is "Strahan" though.  Anyway, I made videos showing two attempts to do the reset:

First attempt: https://youtu.be/RdOkZ2Vynlw

It's not cut, but the description has timestamps so one doesn't have to sit through 5 minutes or so of booting, heh.  Is it normal for the 3750 to take 5 mins to boot up?

Second attempt: https://youtu.be/kczVPaVnQhQ

I made this after seeing amikat's post as their instructions were slightly different.  Sadly, still was to no avail.  Plus now for some reason I don't even get the username prompt; it shows the prelogin banner then you hit enter, it clears and shows another message:

"CC1_A2S1 con0 is now available

Press RETURN to get started."

and when you hit enter, you're back to the prelogin banner and it just loops that way forever.

[piruu91]

Hi @Strahan201,

Are you still experiencing this issue? 

I have seen on some switches, there were previously in a stack, this same issue occur and I kept hitting return and eventually you get a prompt for a log in.

Have you also attempted ROMmon method by pressing the Break function when device is booting? Apologies if this was suggested before.

Kind regards,

[Strahan201]

Hello!

Nope, it's resolved.  Turns out it didn't like me setting the baud rate to 115200 in Putty.  When I dropped it back to 9600, everything started to work properly.

Thanks though!