0xc00021a error code - ENDLESS REBOOT LOOP! HELP PLEASE!

Ctwodub

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2013
38
0
18,530
I recently was running into small issues on my PC. Nothing too terrible, so I ran a system restore to 2 weeks ago(i have done this many times before without error). Now when I start my laptop, I get a blue screen with a sad face showing error code 0xc00021a.

It then restarts the whole process. I can get into my bios so I don't believe it is at all hardware related, but I cannot get through the whole boot process.

Any idea what could be causing this or how to fix? I have very sensitive files on this computer and cannot risk losing anything.

Any help would be great!

Thanks!
 
note: if you can not boot normally, try to boot into safe mode. shift + F8 while booting it the default.
you may have to make a BIOS setting to turn off fast boot on some laptops. You may find you will have to boot on another image of windows 8 like a thumb drive. (and on some systems turn off secure boot in BIOS to do this)

STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED basically, a key windows file has been corrupted.
you will want to run a virus scan, and malwarebytes scan
then run
chkdsk /r /f on your drives
then
sfc.exe /scannow (checks your core OS files for corruption and tries to fix corrupted files by restoring a backup copy)
if that finds corruption it can not fix, then your backup copy is also corrupted. Run
dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth (this will get a trusted/clean online copy of the files if both of your local copies are corrupted)

if all of these fail, boot on to a CD and run memtest86.exe to confirm your basic memory system and CPU are working as expected.
(if that fails, check your BIOS timings and voltages for your memory and CPU or update your BIOS and retest, or assume a hardware failure and isolate the problem down from there)
 

TRENDING THREADS