Erroneous Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express R2 Installation

May 26, 2011 by d0rr    4 Comments    Posted under: Web Development

Issue

You have installed Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express R2 on Microsoft Windows Server 2008.

You completed the installation.

However when you try to start SQL Server service, you were thrown an error message “The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.“

Or, you did not get any error message, but your SQL Server service did not start either, and when you dig into Application Event Viewer you see “FileMgr::StartLogFiles: Operating system error 2(The system cannot find the file specified.) occurred while creating or opening file ‘e:\sql10_main_t.obj.x86fre\sql\mkmastr\databases\objfre\i386\MSDBLog.ldf’. Diagnose and correct the operating system error, and retry the operation.“

Retry for a few times and you may get slightly different error messages, but all have to do with not able to open file at location e:\sql10_main_t.obj.x86fre\sql\mkmastr\databases\objfre\i386\, be it for the files model.mdf, MSDBData.mdf, modellog.ldf or MSDBLog.ldf

If you have followed and encountered the same (or similar path) mentioned above, read on.

Possible Fix

Many have blamed the problematic Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express R2 installer.

Some managed to fix it without reinstalling (but it failed on me).

However, no harm giving it a try as it may work on your installation.

Run the following:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap\Release\setup.exe

with the parameters:

/ACTION=REBUILDDATABASE /INSTANCENAME=SQLEXPRESS /SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS=<account name>

My Solution

I uninstalled my SQL Server 2008 Express R2.

I downloaded and installed Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AB99342F-5D1A-413D-8319-81DA479AB0D7&displaylang=en

Last but not least, I downloaded and installed SQL Server 2008 Express SP1 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=01AF61E6-2F63-4291-BCAD-FD500F6027FF&displaylang=en

To play safe, I downloaded SQLEXPR_x86_ENU.exe which suppports installation on both 32-bit and 64-bit (WoW) O/S, though I was running 64-bit O/S.

Whats More?

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express installation will not be completed without Management Studio.

You may want to download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=08e52ac2-1d62-45f6-9a4a-4b76a8564a2b

Let me know if the above solutions works on you.

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