6/16/2010

Cisco 827 Router - Unable to initialize flash device at FFE80000 -- device not found.

It seems that, if the ROMMON software is upgraded, then the older IOS causes the detection of the Flash memory to fail resulting in the error "Unable to initialize flash device at FFE80000 -- device not found." upon bootup. 


After Googling, several site's (e.g. http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t30077-cisco-827-flash-memory-and-ios.html) list the upgrade of the IOS as the solution. In hind-sight, to avoid this it may be a good idea to first upgrade the IOS to the latest version before attempting to upgrade the ROMMON.



System Bootstrap, Version xx.x(xx)xxx, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
C827 platform with 32768 Kbytes of main memory





Unable to initialize flash device at FFE80000 -- device not found.
CISCO C827 (MPC855T) processor (revision 0x801) with 31744K/1024K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID JAD06430E2L (2370919839), with hardware revision FD3C
CPU rev number 5
Bridging software.
1 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
1 ATM network interface(s)
128K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.





Router>sh ver

Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C827-4V Software (C827V-
xx-x), Version xx.x(x)xx, EARLY DEPLOYMENT RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1986-2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Mon 10-Apr-00 13:45 by phanguye
Image text-base: 0x80013170, data-base: 0x8067D780


ROM: System Bootstrap, Version
xx.x(xx)xxx, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)




Router#show file systems
File Systems:


     Size(b)     Free(b)      Type  Flags  Prefixes
      131072      130366     nvram     rw   nvram:
           -           -    opaque     rw   null:
           -           -    opaque     rw   system:
           -           -   unknown     wo   rommon:
           -           -   network     rw   tftp:
           -           -    opaque     ro   xmodem:
           -           -    opaque     ro   ymodem:
           -           -   network     rw   rcp:
           -           -   network     rw   ftp:






To resolve the issue a newer version of the IOS needs to be installed on the router. This becomes as issue as the "flash:" is not detected. The IOS needs to be installed over the serial interface using the XMODEM commands. Boot to the ROMMON prompt, i.e. reload the router and hit the break sequence.


Depending on the size of the image, this may take a while. Also depening on the router, the ROMMON version, you may be able to configure the xmodem speeds, etc. I used Windows Hyperterminal (hypertrm) for this. Once it's done, set the confreg back (0x2102), if you changed it, and reset the router. Should all be good now.