We ran into a similar problem when installing SQL 2012 on a Server 2012 VMWare ESXi 5.x host. The audit policy was our first thought and with enterprise GPOs pushing that out we searched for other solutions. What ended up fixing it was a VMWare setting change.
Another symptom that pointed us at VMWare was that only the C$ admin share was accessible. None of the other drive admin shares worked. Turning off this hot swap setting fixed it for us.
I hope that saves someone the days we spent troubleshooting it.