Issue: Windows 2012 R2 server not loading to Desktop, server boot loop to Windows Recovery Console & Driver fault error 0xc0000099
Cause : EMC powerpath driver corrupted, missing or not loading
Fix :
Initial Trouble shooting Steps:
- Boot the server in Safe mode and Last Known good configuration – Still going in to “Preparing to Automatic Repair”
- Boot the server with Operating System DVD and select repair option at Installation wizard screen, Select Troubleshoot and run below command
- Bootrec / Fixboot
- Bootrec /MBR – Still going in to “Preparing to Automatic Repair”
- Continue Second step and verify the disk at diskpart
- Change the “System Reserve” disk drive letter to None and change Windows Disk to C:
- Recreated the boot environment (bcdboot C:\Windows /S C:) – Still going in to “Preparing to Automatic Repair”
Fix worked for us:
- Boot the server with Operating System DVD and select repair option at Installation wizard screen,
- Verified the Boot loader by running bcdedit /enum /all
- Change the recoveryenabled to ‘No’ by running “bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled no”, and reboot
- At last server stopped going to “Automatic repair mode” but Operating System boot failed with fault failed driver error, it report driver “EMCPGpx.sys”, corrupted or missing
- Note: driver and sys file differ based on the faulting driver (In My case it was EMC Powerpath)
- Note: driver and sys file differ based on the faulting driver (In My case it was EMC Powerpath)
- Press “Esc” to load to Recovery Console, Troubleshoot and Command prompt
- Open Regedit from commandline, naviagate to “Hkey Local machine”
- Load current Registry Hive (System) from server old C drive (for me it was showing D drive), <Drive>:\Windows\System32\Config
- Take a backup of system file by copy and paste from the same screen
- Load them by selecting “System” registry hive and Open
- Provide new name for identifying the hive, I have given the name as “Original”
- Navigate to loaded hive and find the current and default configuration set by navigating to “Select” key.
- Here ‘1’ means Controlset001, go to this key and find for EMCPGpx.sys
- Modify the start value to Decimal 4
- Go back to Hive root and navigate to Controlset00x > Control > Class and Search for any class with “UpperFilters” or “Lowerfilters” with EMC****
- Edit “UpperFilters” or “Lowerfilters” and remove anything with emc****, as shown below (Do not remove key but the value only)
- Note: I have seen many classes with these upper or lower filters with emc****** removed from those classes
- Unload the registry hive to save the settings
- Reboot server and found the server boot to Operating System good.
- Uninstalled the Powerpath from the server to cleanup any missing registry items from server
- Note: I reinstalled the powerPath and Verified all looks good even after reboot
NB: Courtesy Microsoft support Engineer
great. Thank you for sharing this.
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Holy crap! Amazing! This so worked. What a relief. Invaluable! I always struggled with this type of issue, you just saved me having to restore from backup, at 12:30 am, which would’ve been a pain!!
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