How to reset Cisco 2960 switch to default settings
We can reset the Cisco 2960 settings by erasing its configuration files. To do it, connect your console cable to the switch and open up your terminal emulator software, you can use minicom if you are using Linux. Please visit this link on how to install and configure minicom in Fedora/Red Hat/CentOS and this link if you are using Debian/Ubuntu.
Power on the switch while holding the mode button. Release the mode button after you see the screen below in your terminal emulator software.
Boot Sector Filesystem (bs) installed, fsid: 2 Base ethernet MAC Address: c4:71:fe:2c:2e:00 Xmodem file system is available. The password-recovery mechanism is enabled. The system has been interrupted prior to initializing the flash filesystem. The following commands will initialize the flash filesystem, and finish loading the operating system software: flash_init boot switch:
Initialize the flash file system using the below command.
Initializing Flash... flashfs[0]: 528 files, 19 directories flashfs[0]: 0 orphaned files, 0 orphaned directories flashfs[0]: Total bytes: 32514048 flashfs[0]: Bytes used: 10419200 flashfs[0]: Bytes available: 22094848 flashfs[0]: flashfs fsck took 11 seconds. ...done Initializing Flash. switch:
Find the config files in flash: directory
The files that we are looking for in the flash: directory are config.text and vlan.dat.
Directory of flash:/ 2 -rwx 2664config.text 3 -rwx 2072 multiple-fs 4 -rwx 1919 private-config.text 6 drwx 192 c2960-lanbasek9-mz.122-44.SE6 548 -rwx 3016 vlan.dat 22094848 bytes available (10419200 bytes used)
Delete these files using delete command.
Are you sure you want to delete "flash:config.text" (y/n)?y
File "flash:config.text" deleted
del flash:vlan.dat
Are you sure you want to delete "flash:vlan.dat" (y/n)?y
File "flash:vlan.dat" deleted
Then type the below command to boot to the switch.
This tutorial will also work on Cisco 2950 switches. Hope this helps.