Repower the 3550 whilst holding down the mode button (fig1), do not release the mode button until the LED above 1x has gone out and this should take around 15 seconds and you see the following on your console screen

3550>Base ethernet MAC Address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Xmodem file system is available.
The password-recovery mechanism is enabled.

The system has been interrupted prior to initializing the flash filesystem. The following commands will initialize the flash filesystem, and finish loading the operating
system software:

flash_init
boot

Now type flash_init at the prompt and you will get the following

switch: flash_init
Initializing Flash...
flashfs[0]: 352 files, 5 directories
flashfs[0]: 0 orphaned files, 0 orphaned directories
flashfs[0]: Total bytes: 15998976
flashfs[0]: Bytes used: 5009920
flashfs[0]: Bytes available: 10989056
flashfs[0]: flashfs fsck took 15 seconds.
...done Initializing Flash.
Boot Sector Filesystem (bs:) installed, fsid: 3

Now we need to type load_helper which will just take you back to the switch: prompt

switch: load_helper

Now we need to issue the dir flash: at the switch prompt, if you miss the colon ":" after this command you will receive an error stating "unable to stat flash/: permission denied" so make sure you remember to include the colon

switch: dir flash:

The output from my dir flash: gave me the following

2 -rwx 1803357 <date>c3500xl-c3h2s-mz.120-5.WC7.bin
4 -rwx 1131 <date> config.text

There were other files there but they are of no interest to us for password recovery

From the switch prompt you need to rename the config.text to config.old now by issuing the following command

switch: rename flash:config.text flash:config.old

At the switch prompt you can verify that the file has been renamed by typing the dir flash: command again and check the the file is now named config.old

Now we need to issue the boot command so our switch reboots

switch: boot

Your switch will boot to the "Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]:" as if there is now stored configuration file, at this point hit "n" which will take you back to the switch prompt

Continue with configuration dialog? [yes/no]: n

now type en and hit enter to get into enable mode

Switch>en
Switch#

Now we need to rename the config.old back to config.text by issuing rename flash:config.old flash:config.text at the prompt

Switch#copy flash:config.text system:running-config

When you are prompted with "Destination filename [running-config]?" just hit the enter key, at this point you will see the prompt has changed from switch# to what ever you had your prompt set to along with something like this "7132 bytes copied in 1.412 secs (5051 bytes/sec)"

3550#

Now we need to change the password by typing at the prompt conf t and hit enter

35501#conf t

3550(config)#no enable secret

Then we need to add a new enable password

3550(config)#enable password cisco

Now press CTRL z

3550#

Now write the changes to memory

3550#wr

back to top

Fig1: