SQL Server service won’t start after Reporting Services and Analysis Services install

I received an error after trying to start the SQL Server service for my 2005 default instance:

 

“WMI Provider Error [call to WMI Provider returned error code: 0x800742a2]”

 

In the event viewer, I got:

 

“initerrlog: Could not open error log file ‘D:\sqlserverdata\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\LOG\ERRORLOG’. Operating system error = 5(Access is denied.).”

 

A search of the web brought me a few different hits for solutions, one being a Microsoft KB:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955496

Unfortunately, this wasn’t exactly my problem, but it was similar.

 

My scenario:

SQL Server 2005 Enterprise edition install (database engine only), as the default instance.  I used Windows domain accounts as the various owners of the services.

Few months later, SQL Server 2008 R2 install (database engine only) as a named instance.  I used the same Windows domain accounts as owners of the services for the 2005 install (bad idea apparently).

Another few months later, I needed Reporting and Analysis services.  Installed those two options into the 2008 R2 named instance.

Analysis and solution:

When I attempted to start my 2005 service, I received the above errors.  Looking at the ACL for the default instance folders, it showed that the domain account I had used to own the SQL Server and SQL Server agent services were no longer in the list.  There were two “orphaned” (for lack of a better term) SIDs in the list.  So it appears that the second error was correct; I simply added my domain account to the top level folder of the SQL Server data folder (for me it was d:\MSSQL.1), those permissions were propogated down the tree and I was able to start the service.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143547(v=SQL.90).aspx for information concerning the default directories.

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