GETTING ACCESS DENIED WHEN STARTING SQL SERVICE (SQL 2012)

Question

I built Server 2012 STD with SQL 2012 VM in VMWare 5.1 environment. Also Built two 2012 Sharepoint VMs (Application and Web Front End). Set up three domain service accounts, two for sharepoint and one for SQL to run the server and agent on, set them all up as administrators on the box. The servers have been running fine and development team has had no issues until all three VM’s were rebooted. I've tried to run SQL serivce, log on as a domain admin and the windows account that I used during installation of SQL. No luck, getting…
SQL Server Agent and SQL Server Browser will not start...
Error: Windows could not start the SQL Server (xxx) service on Local Computer. Error 5: Access is Denied.

 ***** Please note: Local system account works. I am able to start the SQL service when I change log on account to local system account.

(I tried removing from domain and readd to domain but this did not help.)

Answer 1

When you changed the startup account being used by SQL Server did you use the SQL Server Configuration Manager as you are required? I suspect someone used the Windows service control program (services.msc). The service control program changes the account but doesn't go around an change all the permission settings that SQL Server needs. That's why you must change accounts using the SQL Server Configuration Manager, which knows all the SQL Server settings to adjust.

If changing the startup account using SQL Server Configuration Manager doesn't resolve the problem, try starting the service by using services.msc. Though you should never change the account using that program, you can sometimes receive a more interesting error, providing a clue to the problem.

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Rick Byham, Microsoft, SQL Server Books Online, Implies no warranty

Answer 2

For more details, errors from SQL server errors logs must be recorded at time you tried to start the sql services.

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Regards,
Rohit Garg
(My Blog)
This posting is provided with no warranties and confers no rights.
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