Confreg 2142 Password Recovery and Config Wipeout

HOW TO force into ROM MON mode:

Press Break on the terminal keyboard within 60 seconds of power up in order to put the router into ROMMON.

An alternate break sequence is to setup the Hyperterminal session on a wrong baud rate, say 1200. About 10 to 15 seconds after power up, keep pressing the space bar (for about 10 seconds till you feel silly doing that). Close the Hyperterminal and reconnect at the correct baud rate of 9600 and you should see the ROMMON prompt.

If the break sequence does not work, refer to Standard Break Key Sequence Combinations During Password Recovery for other key combinations.


You're in ROMMON and you're really messed up. You can't even do tftpdnld because you don't have a tftp server nor a proper IOS config file. It's bad!

I think I even tried the password recovery mode, which would erase the running config file and all that.
ROMMON 1> confreg 2142
ROMMON 2> reset
The router should boot up in the skeleton configuration with no startup or no running, factory defaults to build up from scratch.

Well that didnt' seem to work so I swapped flash cards with another unit (don't know why I had to do that) but I was desparate and it worked. Now what will happen to the unit with the wrong flash?? Whatever.

So the recovered unit is now in the state of - revert to password recovery mode. You will lose the original configuration. The router will have no login, enable password nor telnet

do show version
Most important remember to change the confreg to 0x2102 (otherwise it will go back to 2142)
reload

The factory default setting for the configuration register is 0x2102. This indicates that the router should attempt to load a Cisco IOS  Software image from Flash memory and load the startup configuration with a console speed of 9600 baud. For most purposes, the factory default setting of the configuration register is the most appropriate. To change the configuration register to this setting, issue the configuration-register 0x2102 command, as shown:

Router(config)#config-register 0x2102