I had a dozen Cisco 3560 switches I needed to wipe, but I couldn’t give the intern the password to the switches. These steps let the intern wipe the switches quickly and easily.

  1. Boot up the switch.
  2. Hold the Mode button for a few seconds. The LEDs will blink then go solid.
  3. Let go of the button and the switch will reboot with a blank config. The original configs will be renamed and backed up on flash.
  4. Skip the Initial Configuration dialog then run the regular commands to wipe the switch.
Switch# write erase
Switch# delete flash:vlan.txt.renamed
Switch# reload

You’re done.