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Catalyst 3550 Multilayer Switch Software Configuration Guide
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Chapter 27 Troubleshooting
Using Recovery Procedures
Recovering from Corrupted Software
Switch software can be corrupted during an upgrade, by downloading the wrong file to the switch, and
by deleting the image file. In all of these cases, the switch does not pass the power-on self-test (POST),
and there is no connectivity.
This procedure uses the XMODEM Protocol to recover from a corrupt or wrong image file. There are
many software packages that support the XMODEM protocol, and this procedure is largely dependent
on the emulation software you are using.
Step 1
Connect a PC with terminal-emulation software supporting the XMODEM Protocol to the switch
console port.
Step 2
Set the line speed on the emulation software to 9600 baud.
Step 3
Unplug the switch power cord.
Step 4
Press the Mode button, and at the same time, reconnect the power cord to the switch.
You can release the Mode button a second or two after the LED above port 1X goes off. Several lines of
information about the software appear along with instructions:
The system has been interrupted prior to initializing the flash file system. The following
commands will initialize the flash file system, and finish loading the operating system
software:
flash_init
load_helper
boot
Step 5
Initialize the Flash file system:
switch: flash_init
Step 6
If you had set the console port speed to anything other than 9600, it has been reset to that particular
speed. Change the emulation software line speed to match that of the switch console port.
Step 7
Load any helper files:
switch: load_helper
Step 8
Start the file transfer by using the XMODEM protocol.
switch: copy xmodem: flash:image_filename.bin
Step 9
After the XMODEM request appears, use the appropriate command on the terminal-emulation software
to start the transfer and to copy the software image into Flash memory.