Third-party service is interrupting startup: There are reported cases where the error was triggered by a rogue third-party service.System file corruption: The error code points towards a system-level problem that has to do with file corruption.Whereby power supply is not capable of delivering enough power to sustain all connected devices. Secondary GPU: The issue is sometimes reported on computers that have an SLI or CrossFire setup.Hardware issue created by new RAM or hard drive: There are a couple of reported cases where users started receiving this error after installing a second RAM stick or connecting a new slave HDD.

On investigating the issue and coming across different symptoms of this error, we narrowed it down to four culprits that might trigger the 0xc0000221 error code, as listed below: The operating system couldn’t be loaded because the kernel is missing or contains errors. The full error message for this error code can be seen below. In this post, we will demystify the possible causes and then provide solutions to remedy the issue. Several users report being stuck in an Automatic Repair loop with this error code. The 0xc0000221 error code is encountered by some Windows 11/10 users, right after the computer fails to boot.

Missing operating system windows 10