c000021a fatal stop error

[Blondie357]

Ok I have searched for hours on this with no luck yet. I am a pc technician and I have a customer's pc in here that was stuck in a boot loop. After disabling the automatic restart on failure so I could see the error message, it turned out to be the c000021a fatal stop message. I have researched that error up and down but nothing relates to my situation. I tested the RAM and the hard drive, they are fine. I did a chkdsk.. no help. I decided to go ahead and do a repair install, well it never makes it through it, it just keeps rebooting, saying Setup is being restarted.................. and reboots again. I'm screwed at this point because I cannot get into safe mode since it just tells me that setup cannot continue in safe mode. I have tried all the options on the F8 screen. I tried doing a fixmbr and a bootcfg /rebuild just for the hell of it..nothing is working. I really dont want to have to tell the customer that they need to reinstall. Not that its a huge deal but as anyone knows, its a royal pain in the *** to backup files (on your own pc, much less anyone else's where there's the fear of forgetting something). Is there a way to manually cancel to the stupid XP setup? I have tried some suggestions but mainly I'm told to look on the OS choices menu off the F8 screen, but there is NO cancel XP setup option. I know you can access system restore from a command prompt, maybe going to a day earlier would fix this, but the only command prompt I can get to is in the Recovery console and it wont let me run the program from in there. I tried a 98 startup disk and was told the program couldnt be run from ms-dos mode.

Can someone please give me any other suggestions before I am forced to wipe it out and start over? It all seems to be related (I think) to the winlogon process. I'm guessing it got screwed up but not sure how since the customer brought it in that way. All the suggestions on MS website point to different causes..ones I'm sure won't help me.

 

[Goalie]

First off, backing up files isn't so bad using "dd". Yeah, it takes a full harddrive image which is space inefficient, but you know darn well you got everything. If you have a linux box and a forensics cd (I recommend Helix) you can easily use netcat to remotely recieve the image.

Have you run a scandisk on the filesystem of the harddrive? If the failure isn't hardware, it can be caused by FS specific corruption (however somewhat rare to show the symptoms you're having.) (reread sees you did a chkdsk- with what options?)

Have you done a full "on top" (or "in place" whichever you prefer) install instead of repair install?

The c000021a can often be caused by a permissions issue, which likely won't be fixed by a repair install. It may even explain why the repair install fails. You may want to try to mount the drive in another machine that can read NTFS and double check your file permissions. To be safe, give system full access to the drive. To be paranoid, give everyone everything on the drive. Not recommended, but who knows. You might even try opening up the registry with regedt32 and check permissions there as well.

I imagine you've seen it, but http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156669/en-us has a few nuggets of info in regards to the stop error that you're seeing.

When you boot, do you get the stop before or after the login process? If before, do you get it before the graphical loading screen, during, or after?

Last known configuration you say you've tried- does it or safe mode change the symptoms at all?

What are the arguments to the stop error when you get it?

Knowing this will help to see if we can assist you. I hate to admit, it looks rather bleak, but maybe we can do something for you.

 

[Blondie357]

Replies below...

First off, backing up files isn't so bad using "dd". Yeah, it takes a full harddrive image which is space inefficient, but you know darn well you got everything. If you have a linux box and a forensics cd (I recommend Helix) you can easily use netcat to remotely recieve the image.
I usually do a backup..we use ghost for that, but the one time i didnt...

Have you run a scandisk on the filesystem of the harddrive? If the failure isn't hardware, it can be caused by FS specific corruption (however somewhat rare to show the symptoms you're having.) (reread sees you did a chkdsk- with what options?)
I started the scandisk from windows (My computer) and told it to fix errors automatically, then it needed to reboot to do the scan

Have you done a full "on top" (or "in place" whichever you prefer) install instead of repair install?
Maybe I'm confused but I thought an in place install was the same thing as a repair. Either way it is still stuck in the setup loop so if possible, I need to cancel the setup so I can work with the drive again

The c000021a can often be caused by a permissions issue, which likely won't be fixed by a repair install. It may even explain why the repair install fails. You may want to try to mount the drive in another machine that can read NTFS and double check your file permissions. To be safe, give system full access to the drive. To be paranoid, give everyone everything on the drive. Not recommended, but who knows. You might even try opening up the registry with regedt32 and check permissions there as well.
Could you explain how to open a registry on a slave drive? I didnt think you could view any one but the current system you were booted up with

I imagine you've seen it, but http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156669/en-us has a few nuggets of info in regards to the stop error that you're seeing.

When you boot, do you get the stop before or after the login process? If before, do you get it before the graphical loading screen, during, or after?
The XP logo comes up, then it goes into the setup screen (says setup is being restarted), and shortly after that it reboots

Last known configuration you say you've tried- does it or safe mode change the symptoms at all?
I can't get anywhere with ANY option, it reboots

What are the arguments to the stop error when you get it?
I'll have to get back to you on that one

Knowing this will help to see if we can assist you. I hate to admit, it looks rather bleak, but maybe we can do something for you.