XP Logon BSOD

[EXCellR8]

A buddy of mine is having trouble with getting his computer to start, seems XP is damaged but I can't figure out a way to fix it. A blue screen appears after Windows load screen and reads "windows logon process terminated unexpectedly" etc. and then gives a stop code of c000021a along with 0xC0000135. The system will not boot into safe mode and I've already run a disk check so I'm stuck.

He said the computer was idle when this happened but he suffered from a power outage recently while the system was running. Everything seems to be working fine but XP will not start... winlogon.exe or csrss.exe is probably broken; I'm not sure how to fix this without a repair install. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Route44]

Is there any way you can slave this harddrive to another system and attempt to acces to repair, scan, diagnose? 0xc000021a specifically notes that csrss.exe is compromised and thus Windows is unable to run.

0xC0000135: UNABLE_TO_LOCATE_DLL
Windows attempted to load a DLL file and encountered some error condition. Among the many possible causes are that the file is missing or damaged, or that there is Registry corruption.

 

[EXCellR8]

yea i can slave the drive if I really need to... but i can use a BART CD to access the files as well; run registry scans. all of his data is fine so worst comes to worst i can just back up all of his personal stuff and try a repair install.

 

[Route44]

Sounds good; keep us up-to-date.

 

[EXCellR8]

I had no choice but to run the repair install so I did that earlier today and to my surprise it did NOT fix the problem! The RI itself seemed to go through just fine but the BSOD still appears once the desktop is about to load up. I don't get it. The RAM and HDD drive check out fine but I can't seem to pinpoint the root of the problem. Perhaps this is a hard-embedded virus? If I need to do a full reformat I already have the go ahead but if that doesn't fix it obviously something is broken.

 

[Route44]

I had something similar happen to me about 6 years ago. I received an infection that even after reformatting a sector of my harddrive was useless. There could be bad sectors, but this is only a thought.

 

[EXCellR8]

Well, I had planned to install a temp HDD and install XP on that just to confirm if it was the drive but his board doesn't have an PATA header and i don't have any spare SATA drives. I scanned the drive for bad sectors and the structure is ok; nothing is wrong. I'd like to test the hardware with another HDD but it looks like that's not possible at the moment. The only thing i can think of is maybe the power supply but I don't have another unit as powerful, so that's inconclusive as well.

I'll have to think of something by tomorrow or a full reformat will most-likely need to happen.

EDIT: I just tried starting the recovery console and after i selected the Windows installation the computer restarted.

 

[Route44]

Do you have a multimeter to test that power supply?

 

[EXCellR8]

I don't actually, but i just noticed that his hard drive can use the regular 4-pin molex too so I can use a different power supply out of another computer. I'll just have to disconnect a few things and it should be enough to power the system.

The stop code now is 0xc0000005 and then it just starts dumping physical memory...

 

[Route44]

There is more on the 'net concerning the 0x05 errror than I realized. I suggest researching it because that may help resolve your issue.

 

[EXCellR8]

Yea I've viewed many articles and most point to faulty RAM and failed service pack installations. I guess it wouldn't hurt to run memtest on the system overnight and see what happens. I just may do that tomorrow after I test the power supply.

 

[Route44]

Also, it would probably be a good idea to check the memory voltage set in the BIOS and compare it to the RAM's manufacture's parameters.

 

[EXCellR8]

Well it's a gateway that he's been using w/o problems for years and i doubt i can change voltages with his current BIOS anyways. I swapped in a different set of modules just to test and the same thing happens, so it's not the RAM. I also attached a 500w power supply to the computer and I still get the BSOD, so it looks like the power supply also checks out and the HDD or Windows is the culprit. Either way a full reformat is required so I guess I'll just call him with the bad news. I need this damn thing out of my shop...

 

[Route44]

Look forward to hearing how you resolve (or not).

 

[EXCellR8]

Yea so I just ended up driving to his place and grabbing the restore DVD that came with the computer. I figured it would save me a lot of time since it has all of the apps and necessary drivers integrated. I ran the DVD and Windows XP started no problem. No BSOD, no restarts, nothing. Kinda lousy that it came to this but what's done is done, and the computer works perfect now. Just gotta install some updates and then copy his data back.

Thx for the input.