SQL services wont start due to incorrect drive letter after windows restore

Question

SQL services wont start due to incorrect drive letter after windows restore


Had a server crash, was successfully able to reinstall windows and restore the server SQL and all the necessary services were already installed.

Only problem the windows drives letters are wrong. So the services are pointed to the incorrect drive letter. I cant change the services in regedit or change the drive letter in disk management. Is there a way to do a repair in SQL add remove programs to associate's the necessary services with the correct drive letter?


Here's a example of the services
Path to executable
I:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\

only problem the actual drive letter is E:


Services that wont start
SQL SERVER
SQL SERVER AGENT
SQL Server Analysis
SQL Server Analysis Services
SQL Server Integration Services
SQL Server Reporting Services

Answer 1

Stop the services and rename the I driveletter. Its done in disk management. Start the services again.

is this an option?

Answer 2

Can you try changing the drive letter in the SQL server configuration manager startup parameters? Please read the following article for detailed steps

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345416(v=sql.90).aspx

Regards

Sathish S N

Answer 3

Hi,

For changing drive letters you can use following steps.

1. In SQL Server Configuration Manager, click SQL Server 200x Services.

2. In the right pane, right-click SQL Server (<instance_name>), and then click Properties.

3. On the Advanced tab, in the Startup Parameters box, type the parameters separated by semicolons (;).

   For example, to start in single-user mode, insert -m; in front of the existing startup options, and then restart the database.

   Important:
   After you are finished using single-user mode, you must remove the -m; from the Startup Parameters box before you can restart the server instance in the normal multi-user mode.

4. Click OK.

5. Restart the Database Engine.

The other way is change the dive letter using disk management tool from E:\ to I: or I: to E:

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Waqas

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Answer 4

If you have your binaries present in the I:\ drive which is now the E:\ drive, then either you have to rename the drive back to I:\ or you would need to backup all the .mdf, .ndf, .ldf files. Uninstall existing SQL instance and reinstall a new instance with the same name, apply any SP/CU and attach all the databases.