recovery console and lass.exe error

[Brian]

im trying to fix a pc for a friend of mine. its a fairly new pc, a compaq
presario desktop model. got a p4 2.0 512 ddr, 80gb hd, xp he, etc...

i used the recovery console to do a emergency repair( replacing system,
software, sam, security, and default with the backups from the repair
folder. ) now when it boots up i get a lass.exe error saying something about
trying to update a password but couldnt verify something...i dont know
exactly but thats the jist of it. anyway that message comes up every time
and then the system shuts down.

this has happened to me many times before but i never found out why or how
to reverse it other than a format/reinstall.( not even a repair install
fixed it). and when i try to get back into the recovery console it now asks
me for an admin. password.

anyone got any ideas other than a format/reinstall?

 

[WinGuy]

im trying to fix a pc for a friend of mine. its a fairly new pc, a compaq
presario desktop model. got a p4 2.0 512 ddr, 80gb hd, xp he, etc...

i used the recovery console to do a emergency repair( replacing system,
software, sam, security, and default with the backups from the repair
folder. ) now when it boots up i get a lass.exe error saying something about
trying to update a password but couldnt verify something...i dont know
exactly but thats the jist of it. anyway that message comes up every time
and then the system shuts down.

this has happened to me many times before but i never found out why or how
to reverse it other than a format/reinstall.( not even a repair install
fixed it). and when i try to get back into the recovery console it now asks
me for an admin. password.

anyone got any ideas other than a format/reinstall?

When you boot into Windows you always have to be sure that you use the same
type of XP cd for running the SFC /SCANNOW command as was used to install
the operating system the first time; i.e. use a XP-Home cd if XP-Home is
installed, and a XP-Pro cd if XP-Pro is installed. Also, use a SP1 version
of the cd if SP1 is installed. Caveat: I'm not yet sure if that procedure
can be used if SP2 is installed. SFC is used to replace damaged or improper
versions of essential operating system files, after which a Safe Mode boot
at the very least should be guaranteed. You can not run the SFC command from
the Recovery Console (RC). The RC copy utility is primarily only for repair
of individual files.

What your backup procedure is doing is anyone's guess, since you didn't
elaborate at all. And your backup/restore procedure is probably the very
cause of your current problem and will likely require a clean install of
Windows again. Note that many Windows operating system files can not be
restored from a backup, because they are in use when Windows itself is
running. Try using a 3rd party utility such as Norton's Ghost (it and GoBack
are the only 2 products they have that I approve of) for operating system
backup purposes in the future. You can NOT backup all *system* files, and
restore them again, without using a utility that is very specially designed
to do this sort of thing (normal copy methods will NOT do this properly for
you). In general, I recommend a 2nd HDD be used for creation of a cloned
"bootable copy" backup of a HDD and being careful to only use the HDD
manufactures' special utility for that purpose.

The error you have is a serious one, very fatal in of itself, and while it
could be (in time) corrected for the effort would be great and highly
annoying and involve a very, very large and time consuming learning curve.
You would be quite an expert when you finished the task! Best to just wipe
the HDD and start over from scratch, and use proper backup methods
thereafter. The User created data files, if you backed them up, are still
available and could be restored once you have the operating system and User
programs re-installed. You could copy the HDD to another to maintain backup
of the User created files, then wipe the HDD and start over from scratch and
then get the User created files from that backup if they currently still
exist on the HDD.

 

[kev]

Winguy-

you are just spouting off a bunch of BS to me. i said nothing about safe
mode or sfc. did you even read my post? you are not talking to a dumbass
here. i was hoping an advanced user like myself would shed some light
on my problem, not tell me about proper backups, xp cd's or anything
else. FYI- the emergency repair procedure i referred to in my first post
is a documented procedure in microsofts KB. i have done this procedure
many times before with success. I always use it as a last resort. the
energency repair procedure is basically a manual system restore
performed from the recovery console.

now this problem i get when i do this seems to only happen when I work
on dells, compaqs, gateways, etc... my guess is that it has something to
do with their disk duplication methods stripping the sids, like sysprep
does.