Cisco Password Recovery
If you dont know what the enable password or enable secret password is on a router or switch you can reset it by using the information below.
Power cycle the router or switch and press Ctrl+Break on the keyboard whilst it is decompressing the image. This will put you into Rom Monitor mode with a rommon> prompt.
Self decompressing the image :
########
monitor: command “boot” aborted due to user interrupt
rommon 1 >
At the prompt enter confreg 0×2142 to change the configuration register and then restart the router/switch by using the reset command
rommon 1 > confreg 0×2142
rommon 2 > reset
Because we changed the configuration register to 0×2142 the router/switch will ignore the startup configurtion file stored in NVRAM and proceed to load setup mode. We now need to exit from setup mode and copy the startup configuration (that the router ignored) into the running configuration. Once we have done that we can use the enable secret command to set a new password, change the configuration register back to 0×2102 and then reload the router.
Continue with configuration dialog? [yes/no]: n
Press RETURN to get started! Router>en
Router#copy startup-config running-config
Destination filename [running-config]?
305 bytes copied in 0.416 secs (733 bytes/sec)
Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#enable secret altcontrolit
Router(config)#config-register 0×2102
Router(config)#^Z
%SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
Router#wr
Router#reload
Once the router/switch has reloaded we should now be able to log in using the new enable secret password.
