Cisco Troubleshoot: Password Recovery

If you have encountered the unfortunate tragedy of losing the password for your Cisco router, do the following steps in order. This post also sounds very similar to the other situation requiring the tftpnld command.

1. Read the entire list of directions first.
2. Boot the router but send a break signal using the Break key. In this mode halfway between heaven and hell, set the configuration register to 0x2142
3. Reload the router
4. The router comes up into the initial setup dialog. Hit Ctrl C, type enable
5. Copy the startup config into the running config, copy start run (tricky!)
6. Change the passwords and save the config file. The letters 'wr' is a legacy command that mean write configuration and is the same as copy run start.
7. Reset the configuration register to the default value, which should be 0x2102
8. Reload the router.