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)

    

• 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