Blue Screen of Death!

shopbot

Hi All,
I have a Windows XP PC. Last night it downloaded an automatic update and when the computer restarted it shows the blue screen after the Windows screen. I get the message:
Stop: c000021a {fatal system error}
The windows logon system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc0000135 (0x00000000 0x00000000).
The system has been shut down.

I have tried the following which do not work:
Start in safe mode
Return to a previous working setting
Booting using the XP disk
I can get into the diagnostics partition and it passes all hardware tests. I cannot get software support from Dell until Tues.
I do not have a recovery disk.

Ideally I would like to be able to get it working and not lose my files. However I accept this may be difficult and have important stuff backed up although not all.

Any geniuses out there that fancy helping me please??????

Thanks

SB

westie666

shop bot, found this very helpful

they supply the software in FAT32 and NTFS recovery formats, very easy to use and also brings back deleted files.

http://www.runtime.org/

Not too badly priced at all...

Lorian

shopbot wrote:

Any nerds out there that fancy helping me please??????

It's the session manager having a problem. You need to check in the registry to see what one-off tasks the session manager is trying to do on startup. If you can't safe boot then you may need to do a parallel windows install (to a different directory), attach the system hive under a different key and load it, and then take a look. If you search http://support.microsoft.com for c000021a you should find an article on how to do this.

Which patch was installing at the time?

shopbot

Thanks - not sure which patch it was. I have auto updates switched on and the yellow shield was showing on the toolbar. I let it download in the backgound and restarted when prompted!

Lorian

This was the article I was thinking of.

If there are no jobs then recovery may bemore interesting.

shopbot

Had a look on Microsoft.com It looks like I will need to re-install XP. I presume this will wipe My Documents. If it does what are the options for trying to recover my stuff. I'm thinking along the lines that it will still be on the hard disk and it will be the 'signposts' that will have removed...

shopbot

Lorian wrote:

This was the article I was thinking of.

Thanks - I've had a read however I've no experience of editing the registry....
I've heard it's not a job to do if you are not 100% with what you are doing!!!

Lorian

shopbot wrote:

Had a look on Microsoft.com It looks like I will need to re-install XP. I presume this will wipe My Documents. If it does what are the options for trying to recover my stuff. I'm thinking along the lines that it will still be on the hard disk and it will be the 'signposts' that will have removed...

No you do a new "parallel" installation of windows into a DIFFERENT directory like c:\windows2

Whatever you do DO NOT FORMAT THE DISK. You documents are not lost, but they would be if you do this.

I recommend you get a backup before proceeding, by installing the disk as a slave in another PC and copying everything off. If you are not sure what you are doing with regedit you might want to seek help from someone locally.

shopbot

Lorian: Thanks - sounds like good advice

culpepper

Cant you repair windows using the install disc?
I seem to remember it being an option.
That doesn't format it as far as I know.

albertross_2

Try booting to XP CD, recovery console, chkdsk c: /F
This will fix any logical HD corruption.

If it still doesn't work, then it is either a corrupt registry, or a bad update. If you had system restore enabled, you are in a good position to fix this.., so don't panic and do anything drastic.

when you say safe mode, and last known good don't work, do you get to login, or the same BSOD?

recovering the registry to the previous version might help

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_sys32.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545