Kudikai (12/3/2012)
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.
You are officially my hero right now, while unfortunately it didn't save me days of troubleshooting, it did save me. http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqlsetupandupgrade/thread/a576aa0e-5a08-4c9c-a583-af1815cd8b8e I have been beating my head against a wall regarding my issue in that thread, and your solution fixed it. Slightly different issue but same scenario, thanks!