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re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Monday, April 5, 2004 at 1:45 am Posted by Retro (68 messages posted) Hi there, Have a look at this link, see if this applies to you.. Microsoft KB Article 236086 Cheers, -------------------- Brendan [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Monday, April 5, 2004 at 6:30 am Posted by Rod (2 messages posted) Thanks Brendan, But the article talks about the procedure might cause the "SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED" message. I have the message now and I can't boot (with console or safemode or dosprompt) to change anything. Got any ideas how? Rod On Monday, April 5, 2004 at 1:45 am, Retro wrote: >Hi there, > >Have a look at this link, see if this applies to you.. > > >Microsoft >KB Article 236086 > >Cheers, > -------------------- >Brendan > >[Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Monday, May 3, 2004 at 11:41 pm Posted by muelv (1 messages posted) Welcome to the club. I do have the same problem ... I had installed WinXP pro, system worked fine. I got different problems and restored a partition image but beginning from there, my problems began. I also do have this SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED-error, so I thougt ... it doesn't matter, I drop this partition and I will reinstall the system. But ... After having deleted my system partition (and there is NO PARTITION AT ALL on my hard disk now) the error is still present. XP is starting the installation, loads some files, loads the drivers for my IDE-Controller and after this blue text based installation screen, the graphic system tries to start continuing the installation. It switches to a black monitor and before displaying the graphic workspace, the XP falls into a bluescreen with the error listed above. So, I think, this is a problem of my BIOS-Settings? Can someone help me? I already loaded optimal settings of BIOS and started the installation .... no effort. I loaded best performance settings and started the installation ... no effort. I disabled shadow and caching settings, I turned off S.M.A.R.T and many things, but I'm not able to continue my installation. Could you please help? How did you fix your problem ? Kind regards, Sven On Monday, April 5, 2004 at 6:30 am, Rod wrote: >Thanks Brendan, >But the article talks about the procedure might cause the "SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED" >message. I have the message now and I can't boot (with console or safemode or dosprompt) >to change anything. Got any ideas how? > >Rod > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Saturday, November 27, 2004 at 8:04 pm Posted by ernie (1 messages posted) I had the same problem. I had to fdisk the logical and primary partitions and reformat the hard drive. I switched hard drives and memory one by one seeing what was the culprit. I also took out everything except the hard drive, memory, mouse, keyboard and video card.Then I found out that there was a problem with the CD ROM and I got past the SESSION3_INITIALIZATION error. On Monday, April 5, 2004 at 6:30 am, Rod wrote: >Thanks Brendan, >But the article talks about the procedure might cause the "SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED" >message. I have the message now and I can't boot (with console or safemode or dosprompt) >to change anything. Got any ideas how? > >Rod > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Tuesday, October 4, 2005 at 2:57 pm Posted by Jesse (1 messages posted) Thnx for the info Yes i pulled the cd out & wiped it saw 1 fingerprint on it & worked after i cleaned the cd... On Saturday, November 27, 2004 at 8:04 pm, ernie wrote: >I had the same problem. I had to fdisk the logical and primary partitions and reformat >the hard drive. I switched hard drives and memory one by one seeing what was the >culprit. I also took out everything except the hard drive, memory, mouse, keyboard >and video card.Then I found out that there was a problem with the CD ROM and I got >past the SESSION3_INITIALIZATION error. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Saturday, May 20, 2006 at 5:24 pm Posted by Steve (1 messages posted) I too had this same problem...your tip about the bad CD-RW drive was bang on!!!! I booted my XP CD from another drive and I'm rockin' now. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On Saturday, November 27, 2004 at 8:04 pm, ernie wrote: >I had the same problem. I had to fdisk the logical and primary partitions and reformat >the hard drive. I switched hard drives and memory one by one seeing what was the >culprit. I also took out everything except the hard drive, memory, mouse, keyboard >and video card.Then I found out that there was a problem with the CD ROM and I got >past the SESSION3_INITIALIZATION error. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Monday, August 21, 2006 at 7:17 pm Posted by donald (1 messages posted) SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP summary: using a different optical drive resolved this error message for me. detail: i had this same error using a dvd-rom optical drive loading winxp home edition on a friend's system. the installation files would copy good, but the when the operating system installation processes would begin, the system would blue screen within a few seconds with 'SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED' error message. the strange thing about my problem was that i was able to load winxp pro without any errors whatsoever on the same system using the same dvd-rom drive. logic would then say that the winxp home installation cd was bad, so i returned the winxp home cd and got a new cd. i then again tried to load winxp home using the new winxp home edtion cd and again bsod with the 'SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED' error message. i switched keyboard, mouse, ram, video card and still bsod. i even went ahead and updated to the latest bios firmware, still bsod. not until did i use a different optical drive was i able to load winxp home edition with no errors. conclusion: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP = use different optical drive On Saturday, May 20, 2006 at 5:24 pm, Steve wrote: >I too had this same problem...your tip about the bad CD-RW drive was bang on!!!! > I booted my XP CD from another drive and I'm rockin' now. > >Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Monday, October 2, 2006 at 7:47 am Posted by Paul Littler (1 messages posted) Hi all, I have just had the same problem with windows 2000 which was running fine and just decided to show the message. I have just fixed it, so if this works for you then this post was worth it. Got to a DOS prompt where I could access my hard drive (Used a XP disk) and typed in CHKDSK /F It found a couple of index problems then a whole load of others but afterwards the computer booted fine. Hope it helps Paul On Monday, August 21, 2006 at 7:17 pm, donald wrote: >SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP > > >summary: >using a different optical drive resolved this error message for me. > > >detail: >i had this same error using a dvd-rom optical drive loading winxp home edition on >a friend's system. the installation files would copy good, but the when the operating >system installation processes would begin, the system would blue screen within a >few seconds with 'SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED' error message. >the strange thing about my problem was that i was able to load winxp pro without >any errors whatsoever on the same system using the same dvd-rom drive. logic would >then say that the winxp home installation cd was bad, so i returned the winxp home >cd and got a new cd. i then again tried to load winxp home using the new winxp home >edtion cd and again bsod with the 'SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED' error message. > i switched keyboard, mouse, ram, video card and still bsod. i even went ahead and >updated to the latest bios firmware, still bsod. not until did i use a different >optical drive was i able to load winxp home edition with no errors. > > >conclusion: >SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP = use different optical drive > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 6:58 pm Posted by Ghahndaulf (1 messages posted) I actually disassembled the CD ROM drive and cleaned the optics with windex and my T-Shirt. BANG! It works great. There must be some supersensetive code that Windows uses that cannot handle large data tolerances. Go Figure. THanks for the posts all. This is definitely a very worthwhile thread. On Monday, October 2, 2006 at 7:47 am, Paul Littler wrote: >Hi all, > >I have just had the same problem with windows 2000 which was running fine and just >decided to show the message. I have just fixed it, so if this works for you then >this post was worth it. > >Got to a DOS prompt where I could access my hard drive (Used a XP disk) and typed >in CHKDSK /F > >It found a couple of index problems then a whole load of others but afterwards the >computer booted fine. > > >Hope it helps >Paul > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Thursday, November 9, 2006 at 5:38 pm Posted by Tony (1 messages posted) I can attest to this scenario also. I used some canned air in the cd drive and problem went away. I too was experiencing this issue when trying to install WinXP. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 7:30 am Posted by Shawn Anderson (1 messages posted) just for the record, booting into a recovery console screen and doing chkdsk c: worked for me. On Thursday, November 9, 2006 at 5:38 pm, Tony wrote: >I can attest to this scenario also. I used some canned air in the cd drive and problem >went away. I too was experiencing this issue when trying to install WinXP. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 11:21 am Posted by cssilver (1 messages posted) After reading the threads I booted in my cd-rom instead of my dvd-writer. Problem solved. Who knows maybe the dvd-writers optical is dirtty [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 12:45 am Posted by David K (1 messages posted) Hello everyone reading this thread, Hopefully you have not killed anyone or destroyed any expensive things around the house while troubleshooting this problem. Microsoft seems to love using the same error message for 10 million different scenarios, although this one seems to be hardware related. Here's my story: Dell E510, Win XP SP2, 4GB RAM, Pentium D 2.8mhz dual core; running for the last 1 year no probs. I have an ATI Radeon 256MB video card with 2 screens, and added an old NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 32MB card to have a 3rd monitor. It worked for a while and after updating some windows drivers, it just stopped working. I decided to re-install the NVIDIA drivers (a 2004 53.xx version to support my older card). The PC booted but in Device Manager the NVIDIA still showed as Device Cannot Start (Code 10) The PC booted on the NVIDIA, includng the Windows XP logo, then once the logon screen came on, it would switch to my ATI and my other 2 screens would work but the first one, on the NVIDIA now stopped working now that XP booted its GUI. So I went to BIOS and changed the video startup setting from Auto to PEG, which forced the boot on the ATI in the PEG slot. This is when the blue screen with the SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED stop error 0x0000006F started to come on. I was able to boot XP into safe mode w/networking under this condition, took out the NVIDIA, and it no longer showed up in the drivers, but the PC kept doing the blue screen on normal startup. Solution after wasting 1.5 hours on dell support and hearing "why don't we reload your system?" I got desperate and took out the ATI and put back in the NVIDIA. Sure enough I booted up with a messed up looking GUI, went to device manager and the NVIDIA was back in there! Uninstalled NVIDIA driver from Device Manager, shut down, put back in the ATI, and everything is back to normal - I still have 2 screens and I don't know why this conflict is occuring, but some update I did on XP or some video drivers made it impossible for XP to work with both video cards as it previously had. In retrospect I should have booted safe mode with the NVIDIA and uninstalled the NVIDIA driver first, and I could have avoided doing the hardware swap, but it's interesting that even though the driver was installed Device Manager only showed it in there when the card was present; otherwise there was no way to tell if the driver is installed. (Dell support said since it's not in Device Manager it is uninstalled, but I don't believe in magic) Anyway just my $0.02 on another side of this problem that I have not seen anywhere else on the net with these symptoms. Now I need to find a video card that will work with my ATI, probably another ATI should do... Happy troubleshooting! - David On Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 11:21 am, cssilver wrote: >After reading the threads I booted in my cd-rom instead of my dvd-writer. Problem >solved. Who knows maybe the dvd-writers optical is dirtty http://www.davidkhaykin.com/ [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Sunday, March 11, 2007 at 4:42 pm Posted by lucam (2 messages posted) I got some "delayed write failure" error messages on my otherwise perfectly working W2000, then at next boot of the nice SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED BSOD... I plugged the disk on a working XP system an all partitions checked OK and the disk seems to be perfecly working, changed IDE cables, checked BIOS, pulled out CD and even floppy drives, no luck! Any ideas ? HINT: to view (and delete!) all installed drivers, set the DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES env variable to 1, then on Display menu of HW mgr check the Show hidden devices item (sorry for approximate names, but I don't have an english system) On Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 12:45 am, David K wrote: >Hello everyone reading this thread, > >Hopefully you have not killed anyone or destroyed any expensive things around the >house while troubleshooting this problem. > >... but it's interesting >that even though the driver was installed Device Manager only showed it in there >when the card was present; otherwise there was no way to tell if the driver is installed. >(Dell support said since it's not in Device Manager it is uninstalled, but I don't >believe in magic) >... [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP/2K Tuesday, March 13, 2007 at 6:32 pm Posted by lucam (2 messages posted) At last, I decided to reinstall. I used original W2K Workstation SP4 CD and after only a few hours (!) I had my system back running; awfully slow, but running. Now I can't use my Dual Head Matrox with both monitors, can't read mail from my company's Exchange server, can't update my local SQL2K5XPress DBs, can't start my VMWare VMachines, can't ... but I can enjoy my beautiful W2K system up and running, while looking at the newest Debian distro CD waiting to be booted for a new fresh install! Good luck! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP Sunday, March 18, 2007 at 4:54 pm Posted by Dr. Levy (1 messages posted) YOU GUYS MADE OUT DAY!!! I just had this problem after my wife left her Dell D620 on hibernate for days... (worst habit!!!) and got this blue screen. Using the Dell WinXP reinstall CD I run the "R" --> 1 + Enter --> typed "chkdsk c:" It listed that some errors were found on the C drive and fixed it. That's it! I rebooted the machine and login LIKE NEW!!! THANKS again! On Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 7:30 am, Shawn Anderson wrote: > >just for the record, booting into a recovery console screen and doing chkdsk c: worked >for me. > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP/2K Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 3:36 pm Posted by crtalbot (1 messages posted) I would like to add that I had the exact same issue where even safe mode would not boot and I resolved it by hooking the drive up to another disk with Windows XP installed and doing chkdsk /p from the recovery console on the drive. It has subsequently rebooted fine. No idea what caused the problem in the first place though as it was fine when I shut it down the day before. On Tuesday, March 13, 2007 at 5:32 pm, lucam wrote: >At last, I decided to reinstall. >I used original W2K Workstation SP4 CD and after only a few hours (!) I had my system >back running; awfully slow, but running. > >Now I can't use my Dual Head Matrox with both monitors, can't read mail from my company's >Exchange server, can't update my local SQL2K5XPress DBs, can't start my VMWare VMachines, >can't ... >but I can enjoy my beautiful W2K system up and running, while looking at the newest >Debian distro CD waiting to be booted for a new fresh install! > >Good luck! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP/2K Monday, March 31, 2008 at 4:21 pm Posted by Brian (1 messages posted) Not a cure if you don't already have one, but an ounce of prevention on this issue: I always take a Bare Bone OS install drive image right after getting a basic OS running on my PCs. I found this image was readable and readily installed without errors despite the error from the Win XP install disk. I highly recommend finding a backup software program that will create a disk image that can be installed by simply inserting the image in the DVD drive. Another tip I can give is that I always partition my hard drives on all PCs into a C: and D: drive (then the DVD falls to E:). I keep the C: partition around 100 GB and install ONLY Windows and critical drivers and essential programs to it in order to keep its size SMALL. That way, I can use the aforementioned disk image backup software to readily capture this image on a single DVD at any time (remember to delete all temp files like your Internet Explorer temp files before any backup like this to keep the size down). I do this image after getting my essential OS configurations set (wallpaper, screen res, etc.). Now anytime I want to "burn windows down" and start over, this image disk makes it a snap. And since any addon programs added afterwards were installed to D:, their settings haven't been disturbed, so after reinstalling the base image, I can quickly get MS Office or any other program needed back running and maintain its settings simply by overriding the default install location by inserting D: instead of C: at the front of the install path. Hope this helps someone as much as it has me through the years! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP/2K Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 3:08 pm Posted by Bruno (2 messages posted) Dead on! CHKSDK /F will get rid of this one on an existing install on HD after crashing. Also: Check out active@boot disk: the best tool to access just about anything the recovery console & ms will never fix! Thanks a bunch! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP/2K Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 3:15 pm Posted by Bruno (2 messages posted) ...ooops, that would be chkdsk /f (sorry ;-( [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP/2K Thursday, October 9, 2008 at 9:31 pm Posted by Mehere (1 messages posted) FYI Had a laptop come in with this. BSOD reboot cycle. recovery cds could boot and run winpe and read or recover deleted files. HDD scans (3 diff products) gave no hdd or file errors. Had to do repair with slipstreamed xpsp2 cd. It worked, removed novell client nwgina from login back to msgina but easily fixed. found eventvwr msg about last boot had run a chkdsk itself (or the owner) and found LOTS of errors and orphan files. So I assume error was due to damaged OS file not being repaired or read after chkdsk ran for the owner... Not hardware this time. BUT backing up their files to be sure to be sure... Also FYI XPsp3 has downloaded and is ready to install for this person. shouldnt be related, will finish the install. On Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 3:15 pm, Bruno wrote: >...ooops, that would be chkdsk /f (sorry ;-( [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Win XP/2K Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 7:11 am Posted by kgirlx (1 messages posted) i was trying to install winxp pro. install would BSOD with the same message as everyone here. changing my install dvd drive to my other dvd drive solved it. it installed with no probs after that. i couldnt believe it. i was pulling my hair out before that. all these components are only bout 3-4 mos old. anyways, all the great advice i got from here worked. thanks everyone. On Thursday, October 9, 2008 at 9:31 pm, Mehere wrote: >FYI >Had a laptop come in with this. >BSOD reboot cycle. >recovery cds could boot and run winpe and read or recover deleted files. HDD scans >(3 diff products) gave no hdd or file errors. >Had to do repair with slipstreamed xpsp2 cd. It worked, removed novell client nwgina >from login back to msgina but easily fixed. >found eventvwr msg about last boot had run a chkdsk itself (or the owner) and found >LOTS of errors and orphan files. >So I assume error was due to damaged OS file not being repaired or read after chkdsk >ran for the owner... >Not hardware this time. BUT backing up their files to be sure to be sure... > >Also FYI XPsp3 has downloaded and is ready to install for this person. shouldnt be >related, will finish the install. > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows XP Discussion Forum