I have attempted to install Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials about a dozen times for use as a home server to replace an existing Home Server 2011 box. The server is a custom build using an Asus H97 board with Core i5 and Intel I350 server NIC.  The initial install of Windows Server 2012 R2 component goes 100% fine and I manually update all drivers via Intel's website using signed drivers for the O/S. However, once I start the Essentials portion with the automated wizard, it'll get through about 5% and then on a 2nd restart I get a stop error of 0XC000021A. Doing some research on this error all I can locate is issues with drivers but I'm certain I'm using good drivers from Intel that are very recent and signed. I did also try F8 and disable driver signing checks but this has no effect.

I have installed no 3rd party software.  It does appear that the DCpromo portion of the Essentials setup gets partway through and then upon reboot, I'm getting the stop error.

Does Essentials have a setup log file that gets generated during the installation?  I thought I could use this to troubleshoot what portion is getting hung-up.

Thanks for any input.

Ken

Are you installing from a thumb drive (recommended) or did you try to burn a dvd?

Disable the onboard nics in

Installing from thumb drive created from ISO using Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool.  And onboard Intel NIC is disabled along with audio in the BIOS.  Using a PCIe Intel I350 server NIC.

Odd thing is that Windows 2012 R2 installs fine along with updates and all driver updates.  The problem only occurs during the Essentials setup during the early phase with what appears to be some of the early stages of dcpromo.  Didn't know if Essentials writes a setup log file that I could use to gain some insight.

Thanks.

Ken

• Proposed as answer by Justin GuMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Friday, January 16, 2015 6:38 AM

I've reviewed the logs and nothing really stands-out at me for a cause.  I'm using a Samsung EVO 850 250Gb drive, which will host the O/S along with the small amount of data I have.  Booting Windows into diag mode and command prompt, I can see the volumes with bcdedit.  A small 350mb volume along with the standard system partition.  The SYSVOL folder gets created along with the standard scripts and policies for AD.

Thanks for any input or suggestions.

Ken

So go into detail from start to error.  You boot from the thumb drive next next.  DO you delete all partitions on the drive or are you creating one, if so what size?  It copies files reboots and I forget, it may or may not ask for an admin password.

Then the essentials setup starts and you are breaking out of that with alt F4 and installing nic drivers.  You reboot and the essentaials setup starts again.  You tell it a computer name, domain name, user name and password and tell it not to check for updates.  You say the wizard goes to 5% and reboots and at some point before you see the essentials setup start you get a blue screen stop error above?

Essentials does not change any drivers so I am not sure it would be a driver issue.  You can stop the essentials setup and reboot over and over no problems?

Are there any other DC's on the Lan?  No machines with same server name?  Connect it to a switch by itself?

I seem to have the same problem. The first part of my installation is running through smoothly, all divers except intel management drivers are installed and running, no need for special NIC drivers. I then start the essentials setup and after I entered computer name, domain name, network admin and password, and set the update settings (doesn't matter what setting I take) the setup routine reaches 3% and restarts the computer. After restart the setup procedure resumes and reaches 29%. A second reboot is required, but after reboot it gives me the 0xc000021a error. If the network cable is unplugged the setup tells me to plug it in when it reaches 29%.

My system is a Asrock b75m mainboard with a Celeron G1610 and 8GB ram. I also have the Samsung Evo850 SSD with 120GB.

Could this error happen due to corrupted installation files (I also used the win7 usb tool to bring the iso on a stick)?

Regards,

Christian

Normally a thumb drive is a good source.  Where did you actually get the iso that you are extracting?  if it was downloaded did you compare the SHA1 hash thing to make sure it was a good download?

Exactly what server version is it?  R2 with u

By using an older HDD I was able to run through the setup. Do you have any suggestions on how to solve it with the sdd or should I return it for another one?

Christian

Great !  That rules out NIC drivers and a bad download.

I suppose the first idea would be to see if there is a firmware update for the SSD.

Then look in BIOS and see if there is a "Fast Start" option. For windows, not the old skip memory check type stuff.  It is mainly for WIN8 but may be hitting this.  Disable it.

Next I would look in device manager>Drive properties at the caching options, and disable them.But if you have to cripple the drive to make it work....

Perhaps it is even a bug in the Server code and you could wait a few months and see if they fix it.  That said, you might apply all windows updates before you start the essentials config.

My feelings are if there is a setting in BIOS that "fixes it"  (Might also make sure bios has latest firmware) go with that.  IF not, I would get another drive.

Just for giggles, you don't really need an SSD in Server.  As in it does not reboot that often and most of the time it will just sit there with less than 10% cpu in use.

BTW, Thanks for helping us figure thi

I appear to have a third instance of this with a Samsung 850 Evo.

We've built Server 2012 Essentials machines with other SSD's, and not had issues. Now, we ran into the same bug with an 850 Evo 120GB. I swapped it for an Intel 530 120GB, and all seems good.

-Nate

Same exact issue and same drive, 850 evo 250gb. Did anyone find a way to get this installed? I don't have any other drives available for the OS install.

UPDATE: I cleared my bios for an unrelated issue and forgot to change it back to ahci and it defaulted to IDE and it booted back in and continued installation. (There could have been other bios changes, but I'm really guessing that was it.)

I'll install drivers and try to switch it back to ahci.

• Edited by Nidifice Thursday, February 05, 2015 11:00 PM more info

Paul, thanks for the detailed info.

All, so why does everyone want an SSD for the Server OS<grin>

Paul, thanks for the detailed info.

All, so why does everyone want an SSD for the Server OS<gr

SSD is just my defacto drive for home unless I need storage (terabytes). So for all OS drives I just get an SSD.

I tried a handful of ways to get the AHCI actually working with Essentials and the EVO, but nothing seemed to work. 

I had the same problem. Obviously the drive was a Samsung SSD 850 250GB...
Mine problem was that, when running dcpromo GUI (new forest) on Windows Server 2012 R2, after restart I had the 0XC000021A BSOD.

The resolution for me was to Load Default Settings in BIOS. I think that changing HDD mode from AHCI to IDE did the trick. Hope it will help users with this problem.

• Edited by Alexis Nowikowski Friday, March 13, 2015 11:06 AM

Hello,

AHCI to IDE did not work for me. I concur that this is a problem with the 850's evo's. I have had 3 separate systems at 3 different clients exhibit this behavior. Once promoted to DC the next reboot renders the system useless. 840's or Intel 530's do not do this to the system. Standard hard drives are also ok.

Can anyone provide a fix for a system short of formatting and reinstalling all of the software?

Thank you.

Tony

I also contacted Samsung on this and they will look into the issue. I am thinking this maybe more along Microsoft's issue though. Although the problem does follow the drive.

Tony

I have been racking my brain on this same issue just came upon this sight and yes I am using a samsung 850 evo 500 gb drive

Same situation here

Samsung 850 EVO 120GB on a Dell PowerEdge T110II connected to the SATA port.

Tried with 3 different SSDs, but all of them were of the same model.

I downloaded the English ISOs (both 2012 Essentials, and R2) from Microsoft website and have the same issue: 0XC000021A.

The original 2012 Essentials DVD (Hungarian) ended up in another other stupid error message after the second reboot ("This application cannot open webpage" or "User interrupted opening webpage" - I don't know what the original English error messages say, these are my translations) although no one touched anything. Three days of workaround and ended up here again and again. No way out from this point.

Gonna change to a different SSD brand , and will see...

• Edited by Istvan U Monday, April 13, 2015 6:11 AM

Exactly same problem here installing Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials with SSS Samsung EVO 512Mb. Same error 0xc000021a during installation when AD promo ... never boot again. Will replace tomorrow with Crucial MX100 and see what happens.