Troubleshooting the Startup Process. Published: November 03, 2005 Diagnosing and correcting hardware and software problems that affect the startup process is an important troubleshooting skill. Resolving startup issues requires a clear understanding of the startup process and core operating system components. For information on how to obtain the Windows XP Professional Resource Kit in its entirety, please see On This Page Related Information Understanding the Startup Process Recovering from Hardware-Related Problems Additional Resources Related Information For more information about troubleshooting concepts, see Chapter 27, “Understanding Troubleshooting.”
Understanding the Startup Process To diagnose and correct a startup problem, you need to understand what occurs during startup. The root cause of startup failure, including contributing factors, can stem from a variety of problems, such as user error, application faults, hardware failures, or virus activity. Profile 1. How To Enable Boot Logging For Fixing Startup Problems in Windows. When facing a system crash or startup up problems on Windows Computers, troubleshooting the problem can be difficult to resolve.
The first step with recovery is to use Windows Safe Mode option during startup. One Safe Mode option that will help troubleshoot boot problems is to enable Boot Logging which will create a log and help identify the device or driver that is causing the problem during startup. When Boot Logging is enable, Windows boots normally, until the device or driver that is causing the problem either crashes the system or completes starting up but causes an error message in the Event Log. While booting, Windows creates a log file that lists every step processed that is attempted and completed. You can then reboot in to Safe Mode and review the log file named ntbootlog.txt.
The log is stored in the %SYSTEMROOT% directory (normally C:\Windows or C:\WINNT folder). Below is an example of ntbootlog.txt log file on Windows XP (Vista log is similar): NOTE: screen shot is from XP. A description of the Safe Mode Boot options in Windows XP. This article discusses the several Safe Boot options that Windows supports. These options load a minimal set of drivers. You can use these options to start Windows so that you can modify the registry or load or remove drivers.
To use a Safe Boot option, follow these steps: Restart your computer and start pressing the F8 key on your keyboard. On a computer that is configured for booting to multiple operating systems, you can press the F8 key when the Boot Menu appears.Select an option when the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, and then press ENTER.When the Boot menu appears again, and the words "Safe Mode" appear in blue at the bottom, select the installation that you want to start, and then press ENTER.
Description of Safe Boot options The default Microsoft VGA driver is used for display at 640 x 480 resolution and in 16 colors. Article ID: 315222 - Last Review: May 22, 2013 - Revision: 2.0 Applies to Microsoft Windows XP Home EditionMicrosoft Windows XP Professional. How to Create a BootLog in Windows 2000/XP and later. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to Windows Reference RSS feed Thanks for visiting! When you are troubleshooting a problem with your Windows especially a Windows Start up problem, the best place to start would be to create a Boot Log.
This would create a file named Ntbtlog.txt in the C:\Windows directory with the list of drivers that tries to load. It adds entries for every successfully loaded driver referred by “Loaded Driver” and failed drivers reffered by “Did not load driver”. This could define the root cause of the problem. It could be a device driver or a startup item that Windows tries loading at the startup.
To Create a bootlog, 1. 2. 3. This boots windows normally and creates a boot log named ntbtlog.txt and saves it to C:\Windows (%systemroot%) folder which can later be accessed to see if there was a troublesome driver. Incoming search terms: Windows XP reboot loop - Windows XP Support. How I fixed my Windows XP Stop c000021a {Fatal System Error} with Knoppix Linux – Heal Your Church WebSite.
Below are steps describing how I used Knoppix Linux to fix the dreaded Windows XP ‘Error Message: Stop c000021a {Fatal System Error} The Session Manager Initialization System Process…’ failure. This morning, when I powered-up my computer at work, my Windows XP-based computer booted blue, noting a file error which in turn kicked off an automatic chkdsk scan/fix of my hard drive. I got some coffee and used my smart phone to address email while all this was going on.
When the system was done “fixing” the broken files, it rebooted to something I’d never seen before – a blue screen of death with the following ubiquitous message: Stop: c000021a {Fatal System Error} The Session manager initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000026c (0×00000000 0×00000000). The system has been shut down. After a few bouts with the on/off switch, it was clear, I was dead in the water. I did find on the Messenger Plus! : Warning – I do not recommend this course of action. How to fix “STOP: c000021a (Fatal System Error)” Error!” in windows XP without any CD-roms? [Solved] - Security Answers. How to troubleshoot a "STOP 0xC000021A" error. This article is intended for advanced computer users. If you are not comfortable with advanced troubleshooting, you might want to ask someone for help or contact Technical Support. When you use a server or a workstation that is running one of the operating systems that is listed in the "Applies to" section, you may receive the following error message: STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error} The Windows Logon Process system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc0000034 (0x00000000 0x0000000) The system has been shutdown.
Note The parameters in parentheses are specific to your computer configuration and may be different for each occurrence. The STOP 0xC000021A error occurs when either Winlogon.exe or Csrss.exe fails. When the Windows NT kernel detects that either of these processes has stopped, it stops the system and raises the STOP 0xC000021A error. This error may have several causes. To troubleshoot this problem, you must determine which of these processes failed and why. How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP. We recommend that you use the Recovery Console only after Safe mode and other startup options do not work. The Recovery Console is recommended only if you are an advanced user who can use basic commands to identify and locate problem drivers and files.
Additionally, you must be an administrator to use the Recovery Console. There are two ways to start the Recovery Console: If you cannot start your Windows and the Recovery Console has not been installed on your computer before, you can run the Recovery Console from your Setup CD.Click "How to use the Recovery Console" for detailed information.Alternative, you can install the Recovery Console on your computer to make it available in case that you cannot restart Windows. You can then select the Recovery Console option from the list of available operating systems on startup.Click "How to install the Recovery Console" for detailed information.
How to install the Recovery Console To install the Recovery Console, follow these steps: Command actions. Stuck in reboot loop after windows update - Windows Update. Recovery Console Commands. Changes file attributes for a single file or directory. This command sets or removes the read-only, system, hidden, and compressed attributes assigned to files or directories.
The attrib command with the parameters listed below is only available when you are using the Recovery Console. The attrib command with different parameters is available from the command prompt. attrib [+r|-r] [+s|-s] [+h|-h] [+c|-c] [[drive:][path] filename] Parameters +r Sets the read-only file attribute. -r Clears the read-only file attribute. +s Sets the system file attribute. -s Clears the system file attribute. +h Sets the hidden file attribute. -h Clears the hidden file attribute. +c Sets the compressed file attribute. -c Clears the compressed file attribute. [[drive:][path] filename] Specifies the location and name of the directory or file you want to process. Note You can change multiple attributes for a particular file or directory with a single command. Related Topics Executes the commands specified in a text file. Input_file. ProduKey - Recover lost product key (CD-Key) of Windows/MS-Office/SQL Server.
Related Links Recover lost CD keys for Windows and 10000+ major programs - including products of Adobe, Symantec, Autodesk, and more... NK2Edit - Edit, merge and fix the AutoComplete files (.NK2) of Microsoft Outlook. FileTypesMan - Alternative to 'File Types' manager of Windows. UninstallView - Alternative to the software uninstaller of Windows. Description ProduKey is a small utility that displays the ProductID and the CD-Key of Microsoft Office (Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office 2007), Windows (Including Windows 8/7/Vista), Exchange Server, and SQL Server installed on your computer.
Download links are on the bottom of this page Versions History Version 1.97 Added /cfg command-line option to start ProduKey with the specified config file. Known Problems When running produkey.exe, Some Antivirus programs display an alert and/or block you from running it. Supported Products List System Requirements ProduKey works on all versions of Windows. License This utility is released as freeware.