ASA – Flash Upgrade

So we have to Cisco ASA 5520’s that we needed upgrade to 512MB of Flash. From looking online it looked like this was simple enough, but I did run into one small problem during the process. Apparently, when we got the new Flash in it wasn’t formatted correctly. When I copied the files to the new flash the ASA would not boot.

Copy the contents from the old ASA Flash:

1. Power off the ASA
2. Open the case and remove the Flash card
3. Insert the Flash card into a flash card reader
4. Create a folder on your computer called “Flash Backup”
5. Copy the all the contents the flash card to “Flash Backup” folder. Make sure you can view hidden files and folders.

Here are the steps I followed to prepare the new 512MB Flash (I’m using a Windows 7 computer to perform these steps):

1. Insert your new flash media into a flash card reader
2. Open a command prompt, and type: diskpart
3. Type: list disk
4. Type: select disk 1 <— This may vary for you depending on the number of hard drives you have in your computer. Make the decision based on the size.
5. Type: list partition <— It should list one partition. Notice that the Offset is zero.
6. Type: clean <— This will wipe all the partitions off the selected disk.
7. Type: list partition <— Verify that there is no partition available now.
8. Type: create partition primary <— This will create a new primary partition on the selected disk.
9. Type: list partition <— Verify that there is a new partition and that the Offset is 64KB.
10. Close diskpart
11. Use Windows Explorer to format the flash drive using FAT as the file system

Your new flash is ready for use.

Once the above has been completed you can copy the contents from the Flash Backup folder to the new Flash card. Now you can put it into the ASA and close up the case and power it back on. Your ASA should boot from the new Flash as if nothing changed.