RICHMOND -- A statewide computer failure hobbled the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles on Thursday, leaving the agency unable to process driver's license renewals at its customer service centers.

A hardware failure that occurred late Wednesday afternoon affected two dozen state agencies, and it was unclear late Thursday when all computer services will be fully restored. An extensive maintenance and repair process was launched late Thursday afternoon that will affect all of those agencies, according to officials with the Virginia Information Technologies Agency.

Meanwhile, the DMV is encouraging customers who can renew their licenses without visiting one of the agency's 74 service centers to use the department's online renewal option at www.dmvnow.com or the automated telephone service at (888) 337-4782. Customers who need new license photos will have to wait for the computer problem to be fixed. All other DMV transactions are being processed normally, the agency reported.

VITA and Northrop Grumman, the state's information technology contractor, continued working Thursday to repair faulty memory boards in a networked storage system. The state's storage provider determined that the maintenance and repair process was the best approach to fix the problem.

The process involves shutting down applications, servers and the storage system, and restoring all three in reverse order. Applications will be brought back online early this morning, VITA spokeswoman Marcella Williamson said. Some data corruption is expected, but VITA and Northrop Grumman will address those issues.

This is not the first time the DMV and other agencies have been affected by computer failures since the state privatized its information technology services under a $2.3 billion contract with Northrop Grumman. Lawmakers have complained about cost overruns and delays, and about oversight of VITA.

In an update issued late Thursday afternoon, VITA noted that "the work we have done in recent years to improve the information technology for the state has made our systems more secure and reliable."

The outage still was affecting VITA's own website late Thursday afternoon. An attempt to access the agency's home page yielded this message: "The VITA website is temporaily [sic] experiencing technical difficulties. Restoration activities are ongoing. More information will be shared as it becomes available. Thanks for your patience."