Operating system comes up with Blue Screen Error: Stop c000021a

In this blog we are going to discuss about how we can decode and fix operating system crashes with Stop c000021a.

Below is the first screen you will see after POST, followed by the bugcheck information.

Here is the detail bugcheck information:

The session manager initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000003a(0x00000000,0x00000000)

The second parameter “0xc000003a” resolves to “STATUS_OBJECT_PATH_NOT_FOUND”.

The first reboot after bugcheck you may not be able to get Advanced Boot Options when you press F8 and may only get Windows Error Recovery screen, as seen below.

In such scenarios there is no crash memory Dump generated.

Next thing we need to do is launch Startup Repair from Window Recovery Environment (WinRE). If you do not have WinRE installed on the machine you can boot from either Windows Server 2008/R2/Windows 7 boot disc.

Once booted into WinRE launch Command prompt and open regedit

Highlight HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Click on File & Load hive

Note: Whenever you are booting into WinRE you are actually booted into a RAMDRIVE. When opening registry editor you are seeing the hives from RAMDRIVE and NOT from installed Windows. Make sure you are loading the hives from your Windows.

Consider D: as your installed drive. Browse to “D:\Windows\System32\Config” folder and select “System” hive. See image below.

Now click open and name it as “Test”.

Next step is to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Test\Select and check the value “Current”.

This dword value tells us the correct ControlSet to use.

 

Since we know the correct ControlSet is “1”, navigate to Controlset001 and access the following key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Test\ControlSet001\Services\mountmgr

Selecting “mountmgr”, on the right side pane look for “NoAutoMount” dword value & modify the value to “0”.

Once done, Select Test Key from top and click on File to Unload Hive. Click Yes if prompted.

 

Close the registry editor and reboot the server in normal mode.

More Information:

If the “Automount” is disabled it brings any Volume or Disks without drive letter offline. Additionally, entries under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices key will be missing especially for Windows Boot Drive, which results in this BSOD.

Refer the link for more information on AutoMount: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753703(WS.10).aspx

Jaspreet Singh
Support Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Tengo un Windows SBS 2001 Std ha sido reinstalado ya que presentaba errores en el sistema operativo y se reiniciaba varias veces. En el VISOR DE SUCESOS me indican que es el error 41,  que se refiere al Kernel. El sistema Operativo se encuentra instalado en un Servidor HP Proliant DL 120 G7 con 8 GB de ram, cuenta con Exchange y el sistema se encuentra totalmente actualizado. Asi mismo HP me indicó actualizar todos los drivers y también el BIOS del server. sin embargo sigue presentando las mismas fallas. HP me indica que ya no es error de Hardware, al parecer el error esta en el sistema Operativo. E

• Anonymous
  January 31, 2012
  Will it work on Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (without service pack)?

• Anonymous
  February 15, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 07, 2012
  Is Microsoft going to create a KB article for this fix?  That would be better to reference than this 'Ask the Core Team' blog post.  Just sayin'.

• Anonymous
  March 07, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 14, 2012
  Did a HD to SSD migration using Paragon Migrate.System would not boot from SSD and after trying a few things to resolve, I at least got it to the point where I was getting this BSOD.These instructions here worked perfectly and got the SSD past the STOP and running Windows (Win7 SP1 x64)

• Anonymous
  August 11, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 17, 2012
  Dosent work for me

• Anonymous
  October 26, 2012
  Thank you, This was the only thing that worked. Here is what I did in case anyone has the same trouble. all done in recovery console DVDmake sure windows is c and set as active in diskpartremove drive letter for system reserved in diskpart 3.restart, boot will fail. bootmgr errorboot back into recovery dvd this time you should notice windows is actually reporting c:windows.type bcdedit /delete {default} type bootrec /rebuildbcd reboot and enter recovery dvd again. follow Jaspreet Singh instructions above David ChaseSystems EngineerNetwork Magic Unlimited

• Anonymous
  November 17, 2012
  Well that really helped ALOT!And thx for the tip how to handle that!M$ should take a note on that article!

• Anonymous
  May 22, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 18, 2013
  Originally did all of the above without the last stage - no joy.Setting NoAutoMount to 0 worked - thank you so much!

• Anonymous
  October 25, 2013
  Many thanks!I had this problem as a consequence of deleting an Ubuntu partition and enlarging the remaining windows 7 primary partition using an old version of Parted Magic.I've tried all the combinations found in many forums (check disk, changing the autocheck value in the registry and so on) but this was the only working solution. Thanks a lot again.

• Anonymous
  October 28, 2013
  Changing/setting NoAutoMount doesn't solve the BSOD issue in my case.

• Anonymous
  November 02, 2013
  It worked in my case and thus I declare the OP to be a genius.

• Anonymous
  November 04, 2013
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  November 29, 2013
  Thank you for a great article (very very clear, I wish Microsoft were as good!) and for helping me to boot my Windows after cloning the hard disk from my other PC.

• Anonymous
  April 28, 2014
  Great Article, saved one of my client's server from rebuilding

• Anonymous
  October 11, 2014
  Just wanted to thank you!

• Anonymous
  October 15, 2014
  It works!!! many thanks

• Anonymous
  October 25, 2014
  Didn't work for me (doing the migration of the only system partition onto an additional SSD mSATA).
  But this post has been very helpful anyway because it helped me finding the right solution: i.e. to manually tweak the few relevant letter assignments under the MountedDevices key --being not so confident that, erasing the whole key, the "natural" assignment logic would have been the right one, I mean, the one working for me!
  Thx a lot!!!!

• Anonymous
  November 26, 2014
  Thanks a lot!!!! This just really saved my day.

• Anonymous
  April 02, 2015
  Thanks..............................................
  

• Anonymous
  June 25, 2015
  Muito Obrigado - thank you very much

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2015
  Didn't help. Booted to the exact same BSOD and 0xc000003a(0x00000000,0x00000000)
  
  

• Anonymous
  January 11, 2016
  Didn't work for me, same error. Any ideas?

  • Anonymous
    December 15, 2016
    Bule Screen on Server 2008 R2, STOP: c000021a {Fatal Systemn Error}April 2, 2012STOP: c000021a {Fatal Systemn Error} The initial session process or system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0x00000000 (0xc0000428 0x001006b8). The system has been shut downMy computer recently blue-screened and rebooted, but is not presenting me with the ‘0xc0000428 Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file’ boot error.Solutions: Start the computer hit F8 to go to boot menu, select Disable Digital Signature. Windows will start fine, that worked for our Windows Server 2008 R2 running Exchange server.http://blog.shiraj.com/2012/04/stop-c000021a-fatal-systemn-error/
    • Anonymous
      April 24, 2017
      Sure that works temporarily, but still occurs on every reboot. It's a workaround, not a solution.

• Anonymous
  February 24, 2017
  thank you very much, helped me