lsass.exe system error, ‘invalid HANDLE’ (Windows

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Have you installed or updated any hardware or software? If not, have you tried a System Restore to a time before the issue appeared? If you have installed or updated anything can you uninstall and check? You could also try Start | Run | SFC /SCANNOW.

Joe

--Joe

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Hi Joe. No, haven’t installed any new software or updates before the problem started. And have only installed one update for SpySweeper since this started.

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Hi Joe,
Thanks for the rest of your advice too. I ran a SFC /SCANNOW which appears to have worked (thanks for that tip, I didn’t know that little piece of Windows functionality existed!). I have shut down & started up once & the error hasn’t appeared as yet. I will need to do another couple of shut downs & restarts to be sure, but things look really promising right now!

Thanks again
Regards

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Hi all,
Hoping someone can help me. For the past ten days or so I have been getting an error message box on start-up, just after the Windows XP logo appears, but before the splash screen, saying “lsass.exe system error, An invalid HANDLE was specified”. Windows then reboots. And again. And again.
I have found a work-around; if I F8 into Safe Mode, log in and then restart, the PC will then start up in Windows normally. However, as soon as I shut down, I have to first do an F8 restart into safe mode before I can start up in Windows.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing changed (ie no changes to existing software, no new installs & no uninstalls) before I started having this start up problem.
I have done two full system scans using up-to-date Norton AV (completely clean). I am also running SpySweeper, Zone Alarm, Ad-Aware & PC-Pitstop (no problems with any of them). I have done some reading on the net, many of which said it was the Sasser virus, but my AV is saying I am clean, so I am at a bit of a loss.
Any ideas?
Regards

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Microsoft claims that it’s Malware Removal tool will remove this problem with the Lsass.exe file.
You can get a copy or run it manually from the site at: LSASS

You can also do a search for the Lsass.exe file. The legit file should be in the WIndowssystem32 folder and the wfp folder. Any other locations indicate it’s a worm.

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Hi Bob, Thanks for your reply.
I have downloaded the Microsoft fixit file, run it & found nothing. I also followed your advice & ran a full HDD search; lsass.exe came up in three locations: C:Windows$NTServicePackUninstall$, C:WindowsSystem32 & C:WindowsServicePackFilesi386. Should I delete the non-system32 folder lsass.exes? If I do, are there any registry implications?

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No, I don’t think I would delete the others, although the file itself in the system32 folder MAY be corrupt. If you can get to the file in the I386 folder, you could try copying it into the system32 folder to overwrite the existing file. The folder with the $ at the beginning and end is a hotfix uninstall folder. The screenshot below is what I found in my system but I have long since deleted most of the older hotfixs.

But it may be best to first try the suggestions from Joe.
1. Run System Restore to go back to a point before you noticed the problem.
2. Run sfc /scannow to attempt to fix any system file problems.

OR,
Then lastly, do a REPAIR reinstall of XP ( not a new clean install )

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Hi Bob,
Thanks for your advice – excellent.
Yep, on start-up I F8-ed and did a roll-back to the last known working Windows when I first noticed the problem, but after that first time, the roll-back didn’t work.
However, I did take Joe’s advice & ran a SFC /SCANNOW which does appear to have worked. I will need to do another couple of shut downs & restarts to be sure, but things look really promising right now!

Thanks for all your help – I will post the final results on this thread once I am sure all is now OK 🙂

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Most likely your video driver is corrupted. Download the latest driver from the Internet, boot your computer to Safe Mode and uninstall video driver. Then boot to Normal mode and install downloaded driver.

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Hi Kaplinb,
Thanks for your help, but I didn’t get to it, as the fix from Joe (SFC /SCANNOW) has apparently worked. Thanks anyway!

Regards

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