So we upgraded a cluster from 2008 to R2 tonight. We upgraded the inactive node to R2 SP2 and then went to failover the cluster so we could upgrade the other node. But when we tried to failover it failed. The only thing the critical events for the resource said was that it couldn’t failover. So no help there. The only other error was in the event viewer and it said that the shared component upgrade failed… even though nothing in the upgrade process failed. There actually were other errors in the event viewer but I’ll let the link below cover those. The big important error was Error: 19019.
I remembered something from a few yrs ago that involved a registry fix so I started looking at the registry. After opening regedit I went to the most logical place:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.SQL2008
Once there I saw the Setup folder, which seemed like a good place to start. Inside there I saw a key called SQLDataRoot and its value started with E:\
Well, I have a pretty standardized environment so I know the SQL root was supposed to be on D:. I changed the location to D:\ and the SQL Server resource came online instantly.
So again, that registry key is:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.SQL2008\Setup\SQLDataRoot
This is not only an interesting fix, it’s also a testament to what having a highly standardized environment can do for you. I could have compared this entry with node1 to see if they matched, but it may not have even been flagged as an issue if we didn’t always install SQL on D:\.
So once I had the fix in place, I had something to search for, so I went to google to see if I could find anything about it out there. I came across this great blog post that even gives more detail on this error, so rather than try to reproduce the entire thing here, I’ll just point you to that post.
So this is why I call myself the bumbling DBA. I don’t actually know anything, but I manage to find my way through solutions somehow. And I know I’ll get lots of comments on this with everyone telling me they knew this cause they’ve seen it 100x and all I can say is bully for you. I’ve only seen it once and it was a few yrs ago. I don’t get out much.