Locked Switch - PW Recovery not working

[Steven Tolzmann]

I just bought a 2900 series catalyst switch on ebay, and the geniuses that sold it to me left a username and password on it.

I've already tried multiple methods of recovering the password, including the method Cisco has published.

When I boot in rommon I type

flash_init

load_helper

but when i type in "dir flash"
I get permission denied.

What should I do?

[nelson.garcia]

Any way to contact the sellers?

[Steven Tolzmann]

Yeah I did that, and they just said:

"Hi - sorry we get lots of gear from our customers and sometime is has passwords...we do not reset the Cisco stuff, we are not cisco certified or experts on it. I am told in general it is straightforward to reset the password on cisco stuff - I did a google and came up with the following: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps628/products_password_recovery09186a0080094184.shtml

Please try that or maybe another google will get you the answer."

Which wasn't very much help especially considering I already tried that method before contacting them.

[Jon Marshall · Accepted solution]

sptmaster wrote:
I just bought a 2900 series catalyst switch on ebay, and the geniuses that sold it to me left a username and password on it.
I've already tried multiple methods of recovering the password, including the method Cisco has published.
When I boot in rommon I type

flash_init
load_helper
but when i type in "dir flash"
 I get permission denied.
What should I do?

Just a quick check. Are you putting a colon : after flash ie.

dir flash:

Jon

[Steven Tolzmann]

Oh my god. I did NOT see the : after dir flash on the cisco page.

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

[Jon Marshall]

sptmaster wrote:
Oh my god. I did NOT see the : after dir flash on the cisco page.
THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Steven

No problem, i've done this a few times myself

Glad to have helped.

Jon

[nelson.garcia]

I feel your joy, believe me, I do.

Finding out that what was frustrating you for so long was something as small as a colon is phenomenal.