This was done on a 2900 but applies to all the switches of the same era.

Step 1 - Power Cycle and enter recovery mode

If you have physical access you can power cycle and hold the mode button down for 15 seconds.  After that the SYS light will flash on the switch and you will see the following screenshot.

If you don't have physical access (eg. it is a datacenter swich over console only) then power cycle and hit "Ctrl+Pause/Break" repeatedly once the power is on until you see the below.

Step 2 - Disable startup config file

Type: flash_init

Type: dir flash:

This shows us all of the files on the flash card, normally the startup file will be "config.text".  We will be renaming it temporarily until we boot.

Rename the config.text: rename flash:config.text flash:config.text.orig

Step 3 - Boot

Type: boot

You will see output like this

At this point you could just default the switch but we want to reset the password and presumbly look at the existing config and just reset the password for now.

When it asks us if we want the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]: Answer no

Type: no

Step 4 - Enter Enable Mode, Restore Config And Reset Password

Enter enable mode

Type: en

Restore our config file: 

Type: rename flash:config.text.orig flash:config.text

Set a new password of "realtechtalk.com" (obviously change to the password you want for security reasons).

Type: enable secret realtechtalk.com

Save The New Config/Password You Set

Type: do wr

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