cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
2790
Views
20
Helpful
34
Replies

Losing the IOS

jfeo
Level 1
Level 1

I have alot of cisco 3550 switches out at different sites. So far we have been rebooting all switches and when they power back up the IOS is missing.

I end up using xmodem to get them working.


What could cause the IOS to be lost.

34 Replies 34

I was not aware of catos and we have over 1,000 switches out there that were bought new. I did do a IOS upgrade 4 years ago on all of them so we could use ssh so there were upgrade and reboot years ago now if someone is deleting the flash I don't know and if there is some switches out there there were used could be.

Like I said there is over 1,000 maybe moire of them so it is hard to track all of them

Thanks for all of the info

glen.grant
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

  I think with that specific config register value you have to make sure it has a specific boot statement in your

config pointing to the image in flash otherwise it will stop booting .  Try putting in the specific boo

t statement .   Also 3550's were never a catos box , strictly IOS.

I was able to replicate your issue.

To respond to Glen.  I checked and I can't find a record of Cisco selling the 3550 with a base CatOS pre-installed.  So to that I was mistaken, but the 3550 is a unique system that runs with a CatOS backbone.  This is why it uses 0x10f as the default config-register.  This is also why it prevents a change to the register.  It appears to be a safety measure to prevent invalid config-register values.

Now with all of that said it leaves the question.  Why is your 3550 behaving this way and how do you fix it.

Glen is also correct in how to resolve the issue.  If you follow the link I provided you it will tell you how to staticly define a boot variable.  Incase it doesn't the config command is "boot system [path]".

Out of curiosity please post the results of "show boot" I am curious what you have before you make the change.  When you do this also make sure that the Manual Boot field is set to "no"

I will do I am out of the office and will do either tomorrow or Friday

Here is from one site I found this flash was missing from switch1 how it went missing is unknown.
Switch has been up for 1 year 45 week.

switch1#show flash

Directory of flash:/

    3  -rwx           0  Jun 23 2005 14:37:50 -04:00  env_vars
    4  -rwx          73  Jun 23 2005 14:37:50 -04:00  system_env_vars
    6  -rwx        1048  Jun 02 2009 01:10:35 -04:00  multiple-fs
    2  -rwx         556  Feb 28 1993 19:00:52 -05:00  vlan.dat
    5  -rwx        1530  Jun 02 2009 01:10:35 -04:00  private-config.text
    8  -rwx       13250  Jun 02 2009 01:10:35 -04:00  config.text

15998976 bytes total (15980032 bytes free)

switch1#show boot
BOOT path-list:       flash:c3550-i5k2l2q3-mz.121-22.EA4/c3550-i5k2l2q3-mz.121-22.EA4.bin
Config file:          flash:/config.text
Private Config file:  flash:/private-config.text
Enable Break:         no
Manual Boot:          no
HELPER path-list:    
NVRAM/Config file
      buffer size:    393216

===========================================================

switch2#sh flash

Directory of flash:/

   17  drwx         192  Jun 23 2005 14:37:38 -04:00  c3550-i5k2l2q3-mz.121-22.EA4
    3  -rwx           0  Jun 23 2005 14:37:48 -04:00  env_vars
    4  -rwx          73  Jun 23 2005 14:37:48 -04:00  system_env_vars
    6  -rwx        1048  Jun 02 2009 01:10:42 -04:00  multiple-fs
    2  -rwx         556  Feb 28 1993 19:00:52 -05:00  vlan.dat
    5  -rwx        1533  Jun 02 2009 01:10:42 -04:00  private-config.text
    8  -rwx       13256  Jun 02 2009 01:10:42 -04:00  config.text

15998976 bytes total (9502720 bytes free)


switch#show boot
BOOT path-list:       flash:c3550-i5k2l2q3-mz.121-22.EA4/c3550-i5k2l2q3-mz.121-22.EA4.bin
Config file:          flash:/config.text
Private Config file:  flash:/private-config.text
Enable Break:         no
Manual Boot:          no
HELPER path-list:    
NVRAM/Config file
      buffer size:    393216

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: