harvas

Hello all. First of all, the description of my system: I have a P4@3.82 GHz, ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe, 1 GB RAM Dual Channel, 2 SATA HDDs in RAID 0 mode and a DVD+RW drive with two other virtual (Alcohol). I have the latest drivers everywhere. The initial drive letters were C, D for the HDD, E for the DVD+RW and F, G for the virtual drives. I need some help for a serious problem now I am facing and I believe that the drive letters have to do with. I cannot log into my system (XP Pro SP2), because an error message appears: "lsass.exe System Error: The endpoint format is invalid". The window has only an OK button, which resets my system. It is the first time I see such an error message. As a relatively experienced user, I tried to search and resolve this issue. But the only references I found on the web, were for an old and known security issue which doesn't affect XP SP2. In addition, I am using firewall and antivirus software, so this is not my case.
I saw this message for the first time when I attached a PATA HDD from my second PC (for data transfer reasons). I thought that I haven't plug it correctly in the secondary channel, so I checked it up and I pluged it in the primary channel, leaving my DVD+RW off. In the second boot all was fine, but now I know that this wasn't the solution. When I removed all the other HDD drives and left my system in its initial state, the error came up again. After a lot of searching and testing, I noticed that I could log into my system only when I was having the PATA drive attached as Primary Master. When I put it out, I can't log in. So I infered that something was wrong with the drive letter assignments or with the signatures of the partitions the OS expects to see. Of course, I didn't forget to check my system for viruses or other malware when I was logged in. Then I tried with Partition Magic (Drive Mapper) to swap the drive letters (E: HDD --> I: HDD, reboot. Then F: DVD+RW --> E: DVD+RW, reboot). After that, I unpluged the PATA HDD and my system started successfully, but only once. At the next boot, the same error appeared again.
The similar result has also my registry intervention from safe mode. I read that in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices key the OS keeps all the necessary info for the drive letters and signatures. If you delete all its data, the system is forced to recompute them at the next boot. So I prepared my system with the necessary drives only (HDD and DVD+RW) and I deleted everything there. At the next reboot, indeed I could logged in as I wanted, but at the next reboot the error came up again. I tried both with DVD+RW at primary and secondary channel. Also, I have clean my registry with System Mechanic from the safe mode. The very strange thing is that I tried to repeat the same process (delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices items), but this time I couldn't boot even once!
Also, I would like to add that one time I could logged in after I made (from safe mode) a rollback driver process to a system device (Intel USB root...) under System Devices. I did this, because in a previous successful log in, I saw that my system devices, RAID controller and ATA/ATAPI controller drivers have returned to the original Microsoft drivers. But for one more time, this wasn't the permanent solution, as I thought. The rollback might happened because I tried once to boot with Last Known Good Configuration (no success).
Now I still can log in from safe mode and I believe that something is reported wrong in the registry and causes this error. I couldn't find any info on the web, about what exactly can cause this error. I found only the error code (1706)... If someone has ever heard about this error and can help me, as usual said, I would appreciate it very much. I don't want to make a repair installation of Windows XP, because I am afraid that my system will be messed up and because I believe that it is not really necessary. Of course, I don't want to have the (old and small) PATA drive attached forever. Thank you.

Darren

From what I can read you have added new hardware to your system that causes this error and when you remove it from your system, XP works fine again - is this correct?

Just to be absolutely sure before moving on with any trouble shooting.

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harvas

Hi Darren and thank you for your interest. The direct answer is "No, not exactly". I just want to clarify that, indeed, the problem started, or better created due to the addition of the PATA drive (from my second PC). My system works fine with this drive as primary master and DVD+RW as Secondary Master, but it has problems when I am trying to set it to the initial state (only DVD+RW as Primary Master alone). I cannot understand why. I have installed or change positions to hundred of drives untill today and I have never had such an issue with the OS. I am not 100% sure that the problem is with letter assignments, because I believe that Windows XP are good enough to handle such simple changes. It maybe something with the Intel chipset drivers, but there is not a newer version. I also tried to re-install them from the safe mode, all done correctly but no solution to my problem. Additionally, I am afraid that maybe the virtual drives of Alcohol (I had them from the beginning) have something to do with this mess. That's all from me. Thank you.

Darren

Your problem does sound very strange indeed. What happens when you launch your Device Manager, does it return any errors from your hardware devices? (right click on "My Computer", select Properties. Go to Hardware and select the Device Manager).


Device Manager Screenshot

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harvas

Hi Darren. I was very busy, so I couldn't reply sooner. No, there is not something wrong with the Device Manager. In addition, I have all the latest drivers. I have made some more tests and I found that my system refuses to log in when the PATA HDD from my second PC is absent. I tried to log in only with my RAID-0 SATA drives, but nothing (so no errors due to DVD+RW position or letter). I tried to boot with my DVD+RW also, nothing again. Then, I added the PATA HDD also and all OK. After that, I unpluged the DVD+RW and still all OK. Then I tried to plug DVD+RW to primary master and PATA HDD to secondary master, still all OK. I noticed that my system has assign (untill now) to the PATA HDD letters D, E and F, so I don't believe any longer that something has to do with letter assignments. For a very strange reason, my system demands the presence of this PATA HDD to log me in, damn. I think that something has been left in the registry or so. Any help would be very useful. Thank you.

Darren

I have a funny feeling that this could either be caused by the Bios or a Jumper is placed incorrectly on one of your drives, confusing XP.

Have a look at the Bios and maybe the jumper settings as I am pretty sure this error is hardware related. Are you sure your jumpers are set correctly to master and slave?

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harvas

Hi Darren. I have just updated my BIOS to the latest version and I loaded setup defaults (having the PATA HDD out). Nothing. When I am trying to log in, the same lsass.exe error occurs. I don't believe that it has something to do with jumpers (well, my DVD+RW is Master), because even if I try to log in ONLY with my SATA HDDs (system drives) and with NOTHING in ATA/ATAPI controllers, my system faces this error. In addition, I can log in in the safe mode, so I believe that something which tries to load in normal mode causes this issue. Furthermore, except from adding this PATA HDD, I haven't change something else in BIOS or jumpers. Very strange problem...

Darren

I agree harvas, it is very strange - I am running a bit out of ideas, personally I would format my system at this stage and reinstall the whole thing, but I know thats the worst step one can take. Let me know if you figure something else out.

I hope you will get it working soon.

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Nazbuster

I'm also having this problem.. on more than one occasion.

I have tried the XP Home Repair (twice) with uncertain success. I say this because it is not clear that the repair and updates were of any help in correcting the problem. In fact, I was only able to recover to normal state after manually editing all the boot logs that were large and reducing their sizes. Miraculously, I was able to boot normally after doing this.

My system has been running very well the last couple of weeks. In fact, it was running so smoothly and quickly, I took a system restore checkpoint two days ago so I'd have a place to fall back to if any problems arose. As expected, my old lsass.exe error reappeared this morning. (I shut down every night.)

As you are, I am able to boot in safe mode. I have XP Home on an ASUS board with ATI graphics, dual monitors. 1g ram. Rolling back the System Restore to the last good checkpoint had no benefit. Still have the error. As you, no device conflicts. I have dual 120gb drives in RAID format. I did install an updated raid driver recently, but have had several successful boots since that time.

This is really perplexing...