fatal error

I have a Dell Laptop 8400 that's about 5 yrs old. It was working fine on Monday but when I turned it back on Monday evening, I get the following error:

Stop: c000021A {fatal system error} The windows logon process system process terminiated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc0000005(0x00000000 0x00000000) The system has been shut down.
I googled the error and some comments were to press F8 and choose Last know good configuration. It came back to the same error. I tried booting into safe mode; still it came back. I even tried putting the windows reinstallation cd in that came with the system and booting from the cd. and yet it still came back to the same error. It seems that it reads from the cd but still return the error. I don't have a recovery or bootable cd. What should I do?
Thanks

 

Saw THIS on the web... you want to give it a try? (Browse all the way to the bottom for the actual posts.) I don't know if the cause of the problem was the same as a virus or malware or whatever, but see if the solution helps.

 

Thanks At this point I'll try anything. Just note that I haven't been able to get pass the error. Safe Mode and Last Good Config. just keep bringing me back to this error. I'll post back later this evening when I can work on it. Keep any suggestions coming
Thanks again

 

Try rebooting, but choose SAFE MODE WITH COMMAND PROMPT

once safe mode is loaded

At the command prompt, type
%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
and then press ENTER.

Do a system restore to a much earlier time

 

still nothing. I can't boot safe mode or safe mode w/command prompt. Keep coming back the error. I am going to try to create a bootable cd from another machine and try to boot the laptop. I don't know what else to do

 

Do you always get the exact same error message, or does what follows the STOP: c000021A change?

 

Just how safe are your surf habits? Anyone else use this computer? Did you recently run a malware cleaning program?

Given your description I think what is happening is that you have been infected with a particularly nasty kind of virus that infects a particular registry key....HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon...maybe?

Can't recall exactly what registry key it affected, but I know I fixed it by using a BartPE disk to pull an old SYSTEM registry hive out of a restore point and dropping it in the c:\Windows\System32\config

This MS knowledgebase article is a primer on what your goal is, but in the case of the one machine I had this issue with the hive from the REPAIR directory didn't work.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/307545


Had to go into system volume information (where XP stores restore points), and pull a sytem hive out of there.

This is not exactly a repair for the feint of heart.

 

I get the same error all the time.

 

I had the same thing happen to my laptop a while back and this is how I think I fixed it. I pulled my hard drive apart, my memory ram, and my battery and then put everything back together. If you haven't done this yet give it a try....it fixed mine due to the components not being properly seated right its slot that some how became loose.

 

hmmm, maybe I am confusiing BSODs