In rare cases, the Routing Engine (RE) may be stuck on the Main Menu screen or with the message "Trying to boot from Compact Flash" while booting in the MX Series routers. Manual intervention and selection of correct options may be required in this case for the RE to boot up.

This article gives the reason and the solution to correct this issue.

The following message may be displayed on the Console screen while the RE is booting up and may require the user to manually press <Enter> to continue:

Will try to boot from
USB Flash Drive
Compact Flash
Solid State Drive 1
Solid State Drive 2
Network
Trying to boot from Compact Flash        <<< The screen may be stuck here and require 
                                             manual intervention.

OR

The following screen may be displayed:

Main Menu
1.  Boot [J]unos volume
2.  Boot Junos volume in [S]afe mode       <<<<The screen may be stuck here and not  </span>
3.  [R]eboot                               continue until option 1 is selected.              
4.  [B]oot menu
5.  [M]ore options
                                    

Typically manual intervention is not required for a Routing Engine to boot up. Often faulty console connections are seen to be the cause for such a requirement.

Note: Manual intervention in this case does not necessarily mean a Routine Engine or Compact Flash failure.

Note: Selecting the correct options from the menu should boot up the Routing Engine without any errors. If the RE does not boot up even after manual selection, then the cause may be different and must be investigated.

To resolve this problem, change the console connection and reboot the Routing Engine.