Password Recovery on Cisco Switches

This is performed on a Cisco 3550

To recover from a forgotten password or a corrupt image do the following:

1. Restart the switch and hold down the "mode" button to enter recovery mode
2. Issue the flash_init command
3. Issue the dir flash: command to see the contents of the filesystem
4. Now issue this command: rename flash:config.text flash:config.old (If there is already a config.old, choose a different filename such as config.older
5. Issue the boot command
6. If the old config are not needed, issue delete flash:config.old , if they are however enter EXEC mode by enter the enable command, and then issue the rename flash:config.old flash:config.text command and then copy flash:config.text system:running-config
7. Enter configuration mode with config t
8. Then enable secret <password desired>
9. Then enable password <password desired>
10. And so on for any other passwords you would like to change

These steps should work for any 2900 series switch or 3500 series multi-layer switch.