Factory reset CompactRIO 9066 without password

[Jover]

At the university where I do my master thesis we have a lab setup containing a CompactRIO 9066. The software that is on the CompactRIO is incompatible with the current version of LabView that we have licences for. Unfortunatly the passwords are lost and not the default values. We tried to factory reset the CompactRIO using this approach Restore NI Phar Lap and VxWorks RT Target to Factory Default Configuration - NI but it unfortunately resulted in the status led constantly blinking indicating that it is not a valid OS. Does anyone know how the board can be reset?

[AustinMan@NI]

Hi @Jover,

The cRIO-9066 uses NI Linux RT as an OS. That is good, as VxWorks and Pharlap are no longer used by NI.

You can download NI Linux RT System Images from the NI web:

NI Linux RT System Image Download - NI

You will need to download an image that supports your version of LabVIEW, and you can have multiple base images installed. Once installed, use NI MAX to format the cRIO and install the OS and other software:

Installing Software to Offline NI Linux Real-Time Targets - NI

[Jover]

Hi Austinman,

The problem with this approach is that in order to format the cRIO using NI MAX I need admin rights which I do not have. 

I was looking at this (Restore NI Linux RT Target to Factory Default Configuration - NI) guide but it sadly only covers Intel x64-based targets, not ARM-based targets such as the cRIO 9066

Is there a way to reset the password on ARM-based targets?

[AustinMan@NI]

That KB is old and not really applicable to your cRIO.

Hold the reset button down for >5 seconds. This will put the cRIO into Safe Mode (LED blinks 3 times and pauses). Safe mode is a separate kernel that has enough functionality to install and boot the run time OS.

Page 11 of the user manual has more information on reset button behavior:

NI cRIO-9066 User Manual - National Instruments

It may work. 

If the above fails, you will need to create a USB Recovery drive and reinstall the safe mode image. I don't recall if the utility in NI MAX Tools menu supports ARM devices. 

It may also make life easier to connect a terminal to the serial port, as you can see what the cRIO is doing and access the BIOS. A serial port, cable and terminal program (e.g., PuTTY) will be needed. At the very least setup SSH connectivity.

[Jover]

Thank you for your response, it took a while to find a cable but managed to setup the putty connection to serial port.

I was able to make a RT recovery image using NI Max. The problem is that the controllers seems not to be able to boot into the the usb this creates.

Unfortunately the first thing that gets asked when booted up is to login. This also makes setting up ssh impossible

[AustinMan@NI]

The goal is to get to the BIOS screen so you can boot from a USB stick. You will need to press one of the more common keys to get to the BIOS screen (Del, F12, F2 etc.). The BIOS screen will be on the terminal.

[Jover]

Pressing F2/F10/F12/DEL on either the terminal or on a connected keyboard unfortunately does not get me to the bios. My case seems similar to this one Unable to access or format cRIO 9068 - NI Community 

[Jover]

Does someone else know the procedure to reset an arm based CRIO? I still have not been able to access the bios or use the recovery image.

[Jover]

After getting in touch with NI support they send my a recovery.cfg file which resetted the password. It somehow didn't work on 2 of my USB-sticks but now the controller is usable again