Fixing the Local Administrator Account becomes the Domain Administrator Account

While creating a new Domain in my Lab, wasn’t able to promote the Domain Controller as the password for the Local Administrator is not required so the promotion will fail until the local administrator password is set to required.

Solution:

1. Open a Command Prompt as administrator.
2. Run the following command:

   net user Administrator <Password> /passwordreq:yes
   
   

3. Re-run the Prerequisites check and will now pass.

   

 

 

SQL Server – Cannot Recover the Master Database

Was recently patching my SQL Server 2014 instance with Service Pack 2 in my lab, when I noticed I couldn’t start SQL Server post patching installation.

As i couldnt start SQL Server, i couldnt check the SQL Server Logs. Luckily i remembered that the SQL logs are physically stored where the SQL Server binaries are kept.

Found the Error.log under
D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.VMWare\MSSQL\Log

Looks like the database is corrupted. Cannot recover the master database isnt a great message.

Normally I would restore the system database from backup, but in this case I was in an environment that didn’t have any backups available.

Solution:

To resolve, we need to rebuild the master database.

Pre-Reqs:

1. SA password is known;
2. SA account is enabled;
3. SQL Server installation media for the particular SQL version is mounted.

To rebuild the master database we need to run the below command in an elevated command prompt:

1. Navigate to the setup.exe is within the installation media.

          CD E:

2. Now run the command to rebuild the database.
   ./setup /ACTION=REBUILDDATABASE /INSTANCENAME=<instance_name> /SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS=<admin_account> /SAPWD=<sa_password>

You should now be able to start SQL Server with no issues.