XP Isass Issue

Hello,

My XP professional when booting up in a normal manner gets an error message:

"Isass.exe - System Error An invalid parameter was passed to a service or function."

If I hit the ok tab or the 'x' in the upper corner of the message icon the system reboots and the cycle goes on. The only way to turn it off so far is a hard shut down.

So I tried to run the Operating System Disc which gave me a working mouse and access to the F-10 Setup page. Thus I began to do a Windows repair/recovery. This resulted in the recovery going well until it gets to the point of installing window where it says 'Setup woll complete in approxomately: 39 minutes. At this point the "Isass" error message reappears and no matter the time I wait the hard drive is idled and no further progress is made.

Next I tried putting in the 'Quick Restore' Disc and I get to where it asks for a 12 digit serial number of which there is no 12 digit number anywhere on the exterior of my machine. On the F-10 setup page the serial number for this machine is a 10 digit sequence and is rejected by the Quick Restorer and invalid and the machine is not restoreable.

Been playing with this for a few days now and didn't know if anyone else has experieced this one yet?

I sure I got it doing a very dumb thing not paying attention when I arrived at a Microsoft look alike site that told me I needed to update a couple of things. I wasn't focused enough to realize the dupe.

I assume that if I cannot get any where my self that possible the local geeks squad may have a disc with both an operating system as well as a debugger/anti-virus/anti-malware to possibly save what may be my future garden stepping stone.

Any suggestion/s or thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Marus

 

Can you get into Safe Mode? Recovery console from the Windows CD?

You're definitely experiencing malware but we need to find a way to diagnose which one it is.

 

Thank you Satrow,

No, Using the Windows recovery Disc the same issue arises with the Isass error message as well the pointer/mouse is in operable.

Because I started the Windows recovery repair at an earlier time the system also want to complete the recovery process in this instance.

Cheers,

M

 

Out of curiosity, when you did the repair install, what service pack were ye using on the computer at that time? You may want to use a repair disk with the same service pack as the one ye were using.

Also, during that time of repair...my memory of this is not good....you can do a CTRL+ALT+DEL, bring up taskmanager and end task the issue. It should continue. if you have a camera and post the display we may be able to help.

I know this is odd, I've ran into something like this in the past (4 years+ ago) you can kill processes during a repair install. heh

 

Nope, sorry, during that hang, you can use SHIFT + F10, to bring up a command prompt. Then use taskmgr to end the task. But, still need to see the task manager to know what to kill. I've seen repair jobs fail, with windows media player 10 or 11 installed.

Though, on a side note, during that repair, a good repair, you can play solitare during this, by running sol.exe.:-D

 

Thank you Theefool,

Did use the Shift+F10 to get to command prompt, big step for the kid. This instance it is C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Prior to this time it would not read the C: properly and had some other newly created partition of sorts

Got to the task manager and ended the windows set program and the system rebooted itself and re initiated the windows installation process.

New message says the file 'asms' on Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 CD is needed. Not sure which disc most likely has this info as the nomenclature doesn't match what I have available. I have the 'Application Recovery' 'Operating System' 'Driver Recovery' and 'Quick Restore' disc's. the Driver Recovery disc has had no effect and the request for the right disc to be installed. The Operating Systems disc has seemingly done something in that the request for the 'asms' file is now gone. However the system is idle again and 'still trying' to finish loading the windows set up...

Many Thanks,

M

 

I did also just locate a backup restore Systems disc that I burned in '08. Not sure how to apply it at this point.

Thank you,

 

In playing with the various buttons I've come across this message now for the 2nd time but not really sure how I got here :~0 But if I got here twice I can fumble back a third time...

Windows could not start because of the following file is missing or corrupt:

<Windows root>\system 32\hal.dll

Please reinstall a copy of the above file

So now questing how to go about that process

Thank you,

 

That may be fixed by running fixboot from the Recovery Console.

 

Many Thanks,

Will look into it! : )