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Formating the internal flash simm on a 3640 router

mayambanzumba
Level 1
Level 1

I have a a cisco 3640, It had 16MB of flash memory, but I put in another flash simm to make it 32MB, not the router is not able to boot properly. The error message it produces states that the flash in unknown or needs to be formated. It has not been able to boot properly since and into Rommon, even when I only install the original 16MB simm. Is there a way to format the whole 32MB in Rommon?

Thanks

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

htarra
Level 4
Level 4

It is not possible to exchange Flash cards between all devices

and "Flash card must have been formatted in the target platform."

see "PCMCIA Filesystem Compatibility Matrix and Filesystem Information"

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps341/products_tech_note09186a00800a7515.shtml

Cisco recommends to use the "copy tftp flash:

partition>:" command when you have partitions on the flash.

- First if possible try to format

Formatting Compact Flash Memory Cards

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps259/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a008007e5fb.html

View solution in original post

3 Replies 3

htarra
Level 4
Level 4

It is not possible to exchange Flash cards between all devices

and "Flash card must have been formatted in the target platform."

see "PCMCIA Filesystem Compatibility Matrix and Filesystem Information"

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps341/products_tech_note09186a00800a7515.shtml

Cisco recommends to use the "copy tftp flash:

partition>:" command when you have partitions on the flash.

- First if possible try to format

Formatting Compact Flash Memory Cards

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps259/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a008007e5fb.html

reachonenetadm
Level 1
Level 1

I have a very similar situation. I've upgraded from 2x8MB flash SIMMS to 2x16Mb flash SIMMS. It will only boot to ROMMON. Xmodem transfer says:

rommon 7 > xmodem -c c3640-jk9s-mz.124-16.bin

Do not start the sending program yet...

bus error while trying to access flash - addr = 0x30000000

cannot read flash info

getdevnum warning: device "flash" has size of zero

bus error while trying to access flash - addr = 0x30000000

cannot read flash info

getdevnum warning: device "flash" has size of zero

open: read error...requested 0x4 bytes, got 0x0

trouble reading device magic number

dir: cannot open device "flash:"

WARNING: All existing data in flash will be lost!

Invoke this application only for disaster recovery.

Do you wish to continue? y/n [n]: y

bus error while trying to access flash - addr = 0x30000000

cannot read flash info

I can put the old SIMMS back in and it boots fine. Any ideas how to format the SIMMS from ROMMON or other ways out of this?

Hi,

I managed to fix this problem. I had two new 16MB simms. I booted into rommon and used xmodem to upload the flash file to the router. I think the router formats the flash whilst copying. I have noticed that you are trying to Xmodem a large file (12.4). It will take a rather long time with xmodem. I used xmodem to copy a 12.1 IOS and then upgraded later to 12.4 when I successfully booted from 12.1. Try xmodem with a smaller IOS, I think this enables the router to format the flash byte by byte before copying the image, it worked for me.

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