(Fatal System Error) a status of 0xc000026c

[Guest]

My brothers machine is running under Win XP PRO and he
had a power failure will the machine was running.
He unplugged the machine until the power was back on, but
when he restarted the machine , he gets a Windows splash
screen then the following error.

Stop: c000021a (Fatal System Error) The session manager
initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with
a status of 0xc000026c (0x00000000, 0x00000000).
The system has been shutdown.

I've searched the Web, and Microsoft's own XP support,
newsgroups, etc. but the only reference I get to this
status does not refer to the Session Manager. It refers to
a device driver being bad or missing.

Since I don't get any info. on a device driver I cannot
implement the fix recommended in that reference. Does
anyone have any ideas?

I don't know his specific versions of drivers, updates,
etc. but his hardware config is as follows:

AMD athlon 2000+
256MB DDR
ECS K7s5a Mainboard
ATI RADEON 9000 128MB
Samsung SP8004H 80GB Hard Drive

 

[Guest]

I was able to fix this (mysteriously) by trying to get to
the "restore from last good config" option of the restore
menu. Only when I pressed F8, the CMOS screen came up. I
thought maybe I pressed the F8 key too early so I rebooted
and tried F8 again and the system stalled for a short
period of time then simply started in WIN XP as per
normal. Rebooted, with hands-off, and the system started
no problem. 3 subsequent reboots and A-OK. Well, thanks
for your consideration.