During boot into Windows, my system stalls and I get an error box. The caption on the box reads: “lsass.exe – Bad Image.” And inside the box, “c:\windows\system32\cryptdll.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette.”
I read the “10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot” post. But I can’t find my original Windows XP CD, so the Recovery Console won’t work; I can’t boot into Safe Mode, so System Restore isn’t an option; “Last known good configuration” just takes me into the same problem.
Some steps I’ve taken: I first used Knoppix (a fabulous tool) to back up all of my data, even though I think it was already backed up. I then moved the physical drive to another system. It found it and I ran antivirus (NOD32) and Spybot S&D on it (nothing) and ran Chkdsk from both the command prompt and from Windows. No problems found. I put it back and it still won’t boot to Windows.
Short of replacing Windows, do you have any suggestions?
Kelly
