Refurbished Catalyst 3750 fails to boot and only has a .tar file in the flash

[markreeves7101]

The refurbished switch I just purchased is failing to boot. When I look in the flash memory there is only a tar file. Does it require a bin file to boot? I am not sure if there is some way I can boot up the switch with the tar file or if I should delete the tar file and upload a bin file.

[Reza Sharifi]

The tar file is usually used in a stack environment. For a single switch, try using a bin file.

HTH

[markreeves7101]

I have found instructions to load the bin file using Xmodem but there is not enough space because of the tar file. Do I need to delete the tar file somehow or format the flash memory? Thanks.

[Xerg]

The .tar file consists of .bin image file itself, info file, and html folder which contains web-interface files.

I wouldn't recommend to simply delete that archive, especially if you have no access to the image downloads. Instead, I'd download the .tar from the device via TFTP, next delete it from flash and finally, extract it from your TFTP-server to flash. Note that the destination path going to include a folder named alike .tar file just without extension, e.g. flash:c3750-ipservicesk9-mz.122-55.SE7

You, perhaps, wouldn't be able to extract it from flash to flash as its (flash) size is limited - 15 998 976 bytes total (2 426 880 bytes free) in my case after that .tar extraction. The .tar size itself is about 13 MB.

HTH

Serge

[Leo Laohoo]

Try this ROMMON command: 

tar -xtract flash:filename.tar flash:

[markreeves7101]

I tried this and it says unknown command.

[Reza Sharifi]

Try this command and see if you can delete the tar file if there isn't enough space on the flash:

delete /force /recursive flash:<name of the file>

HTH

[Leo Laohoo]

You're doing this in ROMMON, right? 

flash_init
load_helper
tar -xtract flash:filename.tar flash:

[markreeves7101 · Accepted solution]

I ended up formatting the flash and loading the bin file off of cisco's sight. I found these instructions/lab online to be helpful.

http://www.freeccnaworkbook.com/workbooks/ccna/recovering-a-corrupt-cisco-ios-image-on-a-catalyst-switch

Thanks for everyone's help.

[markreeves7101]

Here is another link that was helpful.

https://community.cisco.com/t5/networking-blogs/loading-an-ios-on-a-switch-via-xmodem/ba-p/3103557

I could not figure out how to use xmodem with putty so I ended up downloading Tera Term.