Noob - Cisco 857 Router

[Crazydave1990]

Hi Guys,

Well, I've purchased a cisco router from a dude on ebay - and tbh, it's driving me nuts.

Each time I attempt to use this router, on boot, it just throws me a bunch of gobblygook, and doesn't go anywhere.

Here is an example of my current putty set-up:

http://s890.photobucket.com/albums/ac109/crazydave0991/?action=view&current=putty2.png

and here is an image of my issue:

http://s890.photobucket.com/albums/ac109/crazydave0991/?action=view&current=putty1.png

My router has been sat doing the exact same thing for the last 20 minutes, as you can see in the second image.

I don't think it's the routers, as this is the second router this seems to have happened too... could it be the wires? am I doing something wrong other than plugging it in and powering it on?

is anyone familiar with this?

I'm new to Cisco and to Routing, this is merely for self-study as this is what I want a career in =/

please help guys

 

[ADB100]

Either you have the parity or stop bits wrong in puTTY or you are using a USB-to-serial adapter that isn't working properly. I have tried several USB-Serial adapters and haven't found one that is perfect. If it is a USB-serial adapter try a PC with a 'real' serial port.
From the 2nd image it does look like the router is failing to boot from flash - either the image is corrupt or it has an incorrect boot string in the configuration.

Andy

 

[Crazydave1990]

Hey man, thanks for the informative advice!

Kinda sucks because I only have a laptop - which only has a VGA port ='[

I am using a USB-Serial port, and tbh, I am starting to think that is potentially an issue.

if the image is failing, I'm guessing I'd need to reload the image? hate sounding like a n00b, but how would I achieve this?

 

[ADB100]

The 857 ROMMON (bootloader) allows you to set an IP address, subnet mask, gateway, tftp server and filename to attempt recovery but you need to be able to console into it. Go to cisco.com and search '850 ROM Monitor' for instructions. You also need an 857 IOS image - which you can get from CCO if you have an account and the right access.. However I am sure you can find one elsewhere. The latest image is 12.4(15)T17 and filename is 'c850-advsecurityk9-mz.124-15.T17.bin'.

Good look
Andy

 

[VinceWhirlwind]

Get rid of your USB-serial converter - they don't work properly and they are a nightmare. Amateur-hour stuff.

Get a laptop with a serial port. Any old laptop with a serial port should be your "Network Engineer" laptop. Put any OS on it it will run and you feel comfortable with and then install putty, ftp server, syslog server, sonar ping, and any other tools that will be useful - Solarwinds Engineer's toolkit, in my case.