Q. What do you get if you erase the contents of the flash memory on a CIsco router?
I plugged one of the routers in during my class yesterday and started the terminal program that lets me connect to the router’s console administration port. I switched on the router and, after it booted up, was asked for a password: someone had left an old configuration in the memory. We always ask our students to use the same password so that we don’t have to go through the tiresome password recovery procedure after each lab. I tried that password and it worked. So I switched the router into ‘enable’ mode for system administration and gave the command ‘erase flash:’ to get rid of that old configuration. The router asked me if I was sure I wanted to delete all the files; I punched the enter key full of confidence: “Yes, I’m sure, that’s why I typed the command’. The router said it was deleting everything and I thought to myself:
“Wait! FLASH???, No! I want to erase the Non Volatile RAM, not the FLASH!!!”
Oops! Too late. :O
NO FLASH
I wrote on the router’s case with a dry-wipe marker pen and pulled another router out of the cupboard for my class.
Today Mr Kioko and I have just completed the even more tiresome procedure to re-load the operating system software on the router and I have dry wiped the warning message from the case.
Phew! We have upgraded the doorstep back to a 2600 series router!
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