PRB: Cannot Reinstall SQL Server After Deleting Files Manually (173180)
The information in this article applies to:
This article was previously published under Q173180 SYMPTOMS
SQL Server Setup fails during the installation process when it attempts to
start SQL Server. Setup shows the following error message in a dialog box
before it quits:
The SQL Server installation could not be successfully completed.
Setup could not connect to the SQL server.
The Windows NT event log shows the following error message:
Msg 17113 : initconfig: error 2(The system cannot find the file
specified.) opening 'master.dat' for config information
CAUSE
A previous installation of SQL Server was removed by deleting the files
from the SQL Server directory. Manually deleting registry keys and removing
files is not the best way to remove SQL Server. Doing this causes any
subsequent reinstallation to fail with the following error in the errorlog:
initconfig: error 2(The system cannot find the file specified.) opening
'master.dat' for config information
The "Remove SQL Server option" may also be unavailable in the Setup
program, so the only way to correctly reinstall SQL Server is to cleanly
remove SQL Server and then reinstall it.
WORKAROUND
To reinstall SQL Server correctly, perform the following steps:
- Run "setup /t RegistryRebuild = ON" (without the quotation marks) from
the Binn directory under the directory where SQL Server was installed.
This rebuilds the registry and fills in any missing parameters. Type the
same information in the setup dialog boxes as the first time SQL Server
was installed. Setup will not copy any files or run any scripts, but it
will re-create the registry and services as if you had done a full
installtion.
- Run Setup again, and this time choose to remove SQL Server. This not
only removes all the files, but also removes the registry entries.
- Reinstall SQL Server normally.
| Modification Type: | Major | Last Reviewed: | 10/3/2003 |
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| Keywords: | kberrmsg kbprb kbsetup KB173180 kbAudDeveloper |
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