Fix 0xC0000365: Hard Drive Driver Failed to Load

When This Error Hits

You're booting up a Windows 10 or 11 machine, and right after the BIOS screen, you get a blue screen with STATUS_FAILED_DRIVER_ENTRY (0xC0000365). It can also show as 0XC0000365. The system restarts in a loop. This usually happens after a driver update for your hard drive controller (like Intel RST or a third-party AHCI driver), or after a Windows Update that replaced your storage driver with a bad one. I've seen it a lot on Dell and HP workstations with RAID setups.

Why It Shows Up

The root cause is simple: the driver that manages your hard drive failed its initialization call. The OS can't load the driver, so it can't access the disk. This can happen because the driver file is corrupted, the driver version is wrong for your chipset, or the driver's registry entries got messed up. The culprit here is almost always a recent change — either you installed a new driver or Windows Update pushed one that doesn't match your hardware. Don't waste time checking hardware faults first, because this is almost always software.

Fix It in 4 Steps

You'll need a Windows installation USB or a recovery drive. If you don't have one, create it on another PC using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool. Boot from it and select Repair your computer.

1. Boot into Safe Mode
   At the recovery screen, go to Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings. Click Restart. When the options appear, press 4 for Safe Mode. If Safe Mode loads fine, the driver is the problem — it only fails during normal boot.
2. Roll Back or Remove the Driver
   Once in Safe Mode, open Device Manager. Expand Storage controllers. Right-click your controller (might be Intel SATA, AMD SATA, or a third-party one) and select Properties > Driver > Roll Back Driver. If rollback is grayed out, choose Update Driver > Browse my computer > Let me pick from a list. Select Standard SATA AHCI Controller (Microsoft's built-in driver). This always works.
3. Run System File Checker
   Open Command Prompt as admin (right-click Start). Run sfc /scannow. Let it finish. It will fix corrupted system files. Then run DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth. This fixes the component store. I've seen DISM fix stubborn cases where SFC alone didn't work.
4. Check for Pending Updates
   Go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update. Look at update history. If you see a recent driver update for your storage controller, uninstall it. Then pause updates for 7 days to stop it from reinstalling automatically. Windows Update loves to push bad drivers.

If It Still Fails After the Steps

Try a System Restore from the recovery USB — pick a point before the error started. If that doesn't work, use bootrec /fixmbr and bootrec /rebuildbcd from Command Prompt in recovery mode. This fixes the boot loader. In rare cases, the driver's registry key gets corrupted. Use regedit in Safe Mode to navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services and delete the key for your storage driver (back it up first). But honestly, 90% of the time the driver rollback fixes it.

Pro tip: If you're using an NVMe drive and see this error, it's almost always an Intel RST driver issue. Replace it with Microsoft's standard NVMe driver and you're good.

If none of this works, your hard drive might be failing. Run chkdsk /f /r from recovery Command Prompt. But that's rare with this error — it's almost always driver-related.