Practical Tutorial on Cisco 2600 and 2800 Password Recovery Procedure

Sometimes, you may buy used Cisco device for your Cisco home lab, but that router/switch configuration most likely already erased to default configuration by the reseller. Or what if you got a router/switch with password in it but you forgot the password you gave to the device?

The password recovery procedure will wipe out all configurations in the router/switch, it is always a good idea to back up your configuration regularly and use the backup to reconfigure the router/switch after password recovery procedure. Now, make sure that we can solve some simple problems on Cisco 2600 and Cisco 2800 series by ourselves, let’s share the details at the following words. Through some devices might have different procedure for password recovery, (some Cisco switches series have a button on the chassis that you must press for password recovery), the steps that I'm showing here are for Cisco 2600 and 2800 series routers, but most routers have the common steps to follow.

Cisco 2800 password recovery procedure

Now that your hardware is connected, establish a serial connection with the router.

The settings you need are:

Baud: 9600

Data bits: 8

Parity: No

Stop bits: 1

Flow Control: None

Detailed steps：

Break the original Process.

1. Press the "Break" key within the first 60 seconds of restarting a router to break out of the boot process for Cisco routers copy the configuration file stored in their memory into the system on boot.; (For break key sequences, refer to this Cisco link:  

   http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps133/products_tech_note0...)

2. Type "confreg 0x2142" to boot from Flash, after you are dropped into the ROMmon console that allows you to modify some essential settings.

3. Type "reset" to restart the router.

4. Press "Ctrl" and "C" simultaneously to skip the initial setup procedure.

5. Type "enable" to begin reconfiguring the router.

Change the password

1. Type "configure memory" to copy the NVRAM into the router's system memory.

2. Type "show running-config" to view the configuration. If you were using unencrypted passwords, you will be able to view them. However, if they are encrypted, you will need to change to a new password.

3. Type "configure-terminal," then "enable secret PASS" where "PASS" is your new password.

Restart running

1. Type "config-register 0x2102" to change the router's configuration register back to the normal 0x2102.

2. Type "Ctrl" and "Z" simultaneously to exit the configuration mode.

3. Type "write memory" to write your changed settings to the NVRAM so the changes will stick when the router resets.

After those steps, we do the Cisco 2600 or 2800 password recovery successfully.

The article referred to:

http://www.ehow.com/info_8683062_cisco-router-2600-password-recovery.html