lsass.exe: System error

There is a strange problem in one of the Win 2003 Server R2 EE in our lab , whenever I start it up I get below error message:

lsass.exe: System error
Indicates a revision number not known by the service. It may be a more recent revision then the service is aware of.

When I click it okay and close this dialog box , the machine will reboot again . The happens whenever I go to safemode or last known good configuration . So virtually , I cannot get into the windows to do anything.

This message fools me that it’s virus infected. I boot the machine up with UBCD4win 3.6 and scanned it with Kaspersky Anti-Virus ver 6.0 (which I customized it into UBCD4win), but nothing can be found, and nothing significant resulted from Spybot & Search.

I tried to boot up with Windows 2003 Server r2 setup DVD for a Repair Install , it somehow pops up the same error message during installation!

After google for a while , I boot up the machine with Windows 2003 Server r2 setup DVD again and get into Recovery Console , and do the following to clear the possibly corrupted registry hive :

% cd \windows\system32\config
% rename security security.bak
% copy c:\windows\repair\security .

Since I have screwed up some system files during the previous unsuccessful repair installation , so I rebooted the machine with setup DVD and start another trial of repair installation again . This time it fix the problem !