2524 12.3 Crashing Loop

I posted this on GS but I am not sure that it was sent out. I
appreciate any of my fellow cisco friends help on this 2524 issue!
Below will be a cut and paste from my Post:

Guys/Ladies-



How do I fix this mess? I upgraded the ios to 12.3 (Must have been the
wrong one.) It was small enough to fit into flash and when it loaded it
had a memory allocation failure. Then it tries to load from the TFTP
server where I got the image from. Below:
Any help is appreciated!

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subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph

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Software clause at DFARS sec. 252.227-7013.



cisco Systems, Inc.

170 West Tasman Drive

San Jose, California 95134-1706
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software

IOS (tm) 2500 Software (C2500-IS-L), Version 12.3(13b), RELEASE
SOFTWARE (fc2)

Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport

Copyright (c) 1986-2005 by cisco Systems, Inc.

Compiled Thu 11-Aug-05 15:58 by alnguyen

Image text-base: 0x0307D43C, data-base: 0x00001000


SYSTEM INIT: INSUFFICIENT MEMORY TO BOOT THE IMAGE!

%Software-forced reload

Unexpected exception to CPU vector 34, PC = 3396110

-Traceback= 3396110 337724C 3377A78 339CBE8 3389A1C 3389C3E 363E80C
339133E 33913BC 32B0298 32B05D4

=== Flushing messages () ===

Buffered messages:

Queued messages:

*Mar 1 00:00:08.491: %SYS-3-LOGGER_FLUSHING: System pausing to ensure
console debugging output.



*Mar 1 00:00:08.147: %SYS-2-MALLOCFAIL: Memory allocation of 4000 bytes
failed from 0x339CBE0, alignment 0

Pool: Processor Free: 0 Cause: Not enough free memory

Alternate Pool: I/O Free: 0 Cause: Not enough free memory

-Process= "Init", ipl= 4, pid= 3

-Traceback= 33771CE 3377A78 339CBE8 3389A1C 3389C3E 363E80C 339133E
33913BC 32B0298 32B05D4

Unexpecte

System Bootstrap, Version 11.0(10c), SOFTWARE

Copyright (c) 1986-1996 by cisco Systems

2500 processor with 2048 Kbytes of main memory



SERVICE_MODULE(0): self test finished: Passed

%SERVICE_MODULE-4-ACCESSERROR: Unit 0 reports register access error -
bad register value supplied

Loading c2500-is-l.123-13b.bin from 192.168.1.100 (via Ethernet0):
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[buffer overflow - 1205760/1205542 bytes]

F3: 15283864+878576+940428 at 0x3000060

System Bootstrap, Version 11.0(10c), SOFTWARE

Copyright (c) 1986-1996 by cisco Systems

2500 processor with 2048 Kbytes of main memory

SERVICE_MODULE(0): self test finished: Passed

Loading c2500-is-l.123-13b.bin ... [timed out]

F3: 15283864+878576+940428 at 0x3000060

william

"william" <> writes:
>I posted this on GS but I am not sure that it was sent out. I
>appreciate any of my fellow cisco friends help on this 2524 issue!
>Below will be a cut and paste from my Post:
>How do I fix this mess? I upgraded the ios to 12.3 (Must have been the
>wrong one.) It was small enough to fit into flash and when it loaded it
>had a memory allocation failure....

>SYSTEM INIT: INSUFFICIENT MEMORY TO BOOT THE IMAGE!

You don't have enough DRAM in the router to run the image.
Buy enough DRAM to max out the router.

If you can't, then you'll have to break into the boot ROM image, wipe
flash, and TFTP in one that will work for you.

As the last writer indicated, you seem to have upgraded to an image
that needs more DRAM in the system than you have right now. So, adding
more memory to the system is the only option if you need to run the
version you loaded.

In the meantime, you can recover by booting into the rxboot image on
the router. To do that, while the system is in the booting loop, just
keep sending breaks to the system. There is small window during bootup
when breaks will be accepted even if the config register indicates that
breaks are to be ignored. Once the break takes effect, you will end
up in rommon with the rommon prompt (which will be ">").

At the rommon, type
o
to see the current value of the config register and then type
o/r 0x0
to change the config register to 0x0. Then type "i" to reset the
system and you should see the rommon banner and then the rommon prompt.
Now at the prompt, type
b
and press return. That will cause the rxboot image to get booted.
That image does not include IP routing functionality but you should be
able to erase flash to purge the image you loaded and use a network
interface to TFTP in a version that you know will work on the system.
Finally, change the "boot system" command to indicate that this new
image should be loaded, change the config register back to what it was
before (from the output of the rommon "o" command) and reload the
system. That should result in you getting back to a working system
image.

Cisco da Gama
http://ciscostudy.blogspot.com

cool name man.

I actually ended up taking off the top of the router, in frustration!
Then I swapped the order of the 2 x 8mb flash. (thinking that it would
not recognize the ios.) and then default into boot>
This IS actually what happened. I could not believe it worked!!!!!
Then I tftp'd smaller 12.1 image onto the box, but it did not ask me
to erase the current ios to make room. But before I could do that
(tftping) I had to erase the 2 newly created partitions I had made by
swapping the RAM order. Then I needed to combine the flash "partition 1
16." Then copied the flash from tftp. Reloaded. Then when I wanted
to reload; it was trying to boot the image from:
boot system tftp 255.255.255.255..
which would screw up every time.
After I entered "no system boot" and wrote it to mem. It reloaded fine
by default!

Now I ordered the correct amount of DRAM 16 and it will be here in 2
days.

I wanted to show step by step in case someone was interested.