Windows 2000 Stop Messages

This Stop message indicates that a driver or a system DLL has been corrupted. Typically, the name of the damaged file is displayed as part of the message.

Resolving the Problem

To resolve this error, restart the computer using either the product CD or the four Setup disks and enter Windows 2000 Setup. Press ENTER at the Setup Notification screen to go to the Welcome to Setup screen. Press R to repair a Windows 2000 installation, then press R to start the Emergency Repair Process, and then press F to run the Fast Repair option. You will be prompted for the Emergency Recovery Disk (ERD). Allow the system to repair or replace the missing or damaged driver file on the system partition. For more information about the ERD, see Troubleshooting Tools and Strategies in this book.

If you can successfully start the computer using Safe Mode, try using the System File Checker (SFC) to correct the problem. Open up the Run dialog box, type sfc /scannow and press ENTER. For more information about System File Checker and Safe Mode, see Troubleshooting Tools and Strategies in this book.

If a specific file was identified in the Stop message as being corrupted, you can try replacing that individual file manually. Restart the system, then press F8 at the character-mode screen that displays the prompt For troubleshooting and advanced startup options for Windows 2000, press F8. On the resulting Windows 2000 Advanced Options menu, choose Safe Mode with Command Prompt . From there, copy a fresh version of the file from the original source onto the hard disk. If the file is used as part of the system startup process in Safe Mode, you need to start the computer using the Recovery Console in order to access the file. For more information about Safe Mode and the Recovery Console, see Troubleshooting Tools and Strategies in this book. If these methods fail, try reinstalling Windows 2000 and then restoring the system from a backup.

Note

Some files are located in the Driver.cab located on the Windows 2000 operating system CD or in the %systemroot%\Driver cache\I386 folder. Files inside the CAB file need to be extracted before they can be used. If you can successfully start the computer with Safe Mode, they can be extracted by double-clicking the CAB file in Explorer and copying the files to the target location. If you cannot start the computer, use the Recovery Console. Use the Expand command to extract them from the CAB and copy them to the hard disk. If the original file from the product CD is not in a CAB file but has a file name extension ending in an underscore, the file needs to be uncompressed before it can be used. The Recovery Consoles Copy command automatically detects compressed files and expands them as they are copied to the target location, although you need to specify the correct file name extension as part of the command. For more information about the Recovery Console, see Troubleshooting Tools and Strategies in this book.

Disk errors can be a source of file corruption. Run Chkdsk /f /r to detect and resolve any file system structural corruption. You must restart the system before the disk scan begins on a system partition. If you cannot start the system due to the error, use the Recovery Console and run Chkdsk /r . For more information about the Recovery Console, see Troubleshooting Tools and Strategies in this book.

Warning

If your system partition is formatted with the FAT16 file system, the long file names used by Windows 2000 can be damaged if Scandisk or another MS-DOS-based hard disk tool is used to verify the integrity of your hard disk from an MS-DOS prompt. (An MS-DOS prompt is typically derived from an MS-DOS startup disk or from starting MS-DOS on a multiboot system.) Always use the Windows 2000 version of Chkdsk on Windows 2000 disks.

If the error occurred immediately after RAM was added to the system, the paging file might be corrupted or the new RAM itself might be either faulty or incompatible.

To determine if newly added RAM is causing a Stop message

1. Return the system to the original RAM configuration.

2. Use the Recovery Console to access the partition containing the paging file and delete the file Pagefile.sys. For more information about the Recovery Console, see Troubleshooting Tools and Strategies in this book.

3. While still in the Recovery Console, run Chkdsk /r on the partition that contained the paging file.

4. Restart the system.

5. Set the paging file to an optimal level for the amount of RAM added.

6. Shut down the system and add your RAM.
   The new RAM must meet the system manufacturers specifications for speed, parity, and type (that is, fast page mode [FPM] versus extended data out [EDO] versus synchronous dynamic random access memory [SDRAM]). Try to match the new RAM to the existing installed RAM as closely as possible. RAM can come in many different capacities, and more importantly, in different formats (single inline memory modules [SIMMs] or dual inline memory modules [DIMMs]). The electrical contacts can be either gold or tin, and it is not wise to mix these contact types.

If you experience the same error message after reinstalling the new RAM, run hardware diagnostics supplied by the system manufacturer, especially the memory scanner. For details on these procedures, see the owners manual for your computer.

When you can log on to the system again, check the System Log in Event Viewer for additional error messages that might help pinpoint the device or driver that is causing the error. Disabling memory caching of the BIOS might also resolve this error.

For more troubleshooting information about the 0xC0000221 Stop message, refer to the Microsoft Knowledge Base link, using the keywords winnt and 0xC0000221 . For information about these resources, see Additional Resources at the end of this chapter.