Stop error on startup

This is a bit out of my realm. During win2000 startup my system displays a stop error identifying advapi32.dll as being corrupt. I do not have am emergency startup disk and cannot use the cd to repair the problem because it states there is no Windows OS to repair. I can't boot up in safe mode either. Is there anything I can do, or do I have to reinstall.

 

I did a fair amount of research last evening and this morning. information is scarce. That particular dll file has some very low-level calls and it seems entirely possible that if it is missing or damaged then the 2K install will seem to have vanished.

Absent a current ERD and with the thing telling you no OS found, my suggestion would probably be to reinstall.

One possibility - when you start from the CD and proceed a little, do you get to the repair option? If so, you might take a try at the automatic repair part.

 

Thanks NEWT, I'm going to try and get a emergency repair disk from a guy at work and hope that will work. I checked out Microsoft support and didn't see much pertaining to that dll either. Thanks for trying though.

 

hi stems

see my private message to you ....



mark

 

stems,

another thing you can try is to download the dll from this site...

http://dll.yaroslavl.ru/index.php3?in_char=A

i see two advapi32.dll files there, so check their version numbers.

also be sure to run a virus scan on the downloaded file on your drive before you move or copy them to your C:\WINNT\system32 folder. but that's just standard procedure.

i have no knowledge of the linked site. it just turned up on a google search.

good luck



mark

 

It sounds as if you might need to load a driver for your HDD controller during the install phase.

If you have your HDD on an ATA-100 controller Windows will need drivers for it in order to see the HDD mounted on said controller (one exception to the rule seems to be the Intel ATA-100 controller).

This also explains why the installer can't find a Windows installation to repair.

What you need to do if it is a problem with the controller is to have a floppy disk with the driver ready when you boot up the machine from the Win2K CD-ROM. Early in the installation procedure it will say something to the effect of press F6 to install extra drivers... Press F6 and insert the Floppy Disk (it will only accept floppy disks, and the driver (or the .inf file) must be at the root level not in a subfolder), pick the right driver in the list, and then continue with the installation.

You should then be presented with the repair option as it is now possible for Windows to "see" the HDD.