SQL Server 2022 installation error on windows 11 pro with error "Could not find the database engine startup handle"

Question

I am trying to install SQL server 2022 on windows 11. But the installation always gets stuck on SQLEngineDBStartConfigAction_install_configrc_Cpu64

Then after some time it shows an error: - I have tried everything from completely uninstalling, to changing right etc. but its not getting resolved. I am in urgent need of SQL server. I had installed it prior to this and It was working fine but I uninstalled it and as tried reinstalling it I have been having this issue. I have tried different solutions and i have multiple instances on my system and i'm unable to remove them. I also tried repairing through the SQL server installation center, that won't work either.

I keep getting this error message.I deleted some files when uninstalling SQL before, i read some procedure when faced with this issue https://poweradm.com/uninstall-microsoft-sql-server/ . I performed some actions like removing the files described in the picture below,

and deleting some services but they were still visible on the service

I unknowingly created multiple instances and I can't think of a solution to this problem.

Answer 1

The error message "Could not find the database engine startup handle" during SQL Server 2022 installation on Windows 11 may indicate a problem with the SQL Server Database Engine service. You can try the following steps to resolve the issue:

1. Open the Services app by pressing the Windows key + R, typing "services.msc", and pressing Enter.
2. Locate the SQL Server Database Engine service and ensure that it is running. If it is not running, right-click on it and select "Start".
3. If the service is running, try restarting it by right-clicking on it and selecting "Restart".
4. If the issue persists, try repairing the SQL Server installation by running the setup program and selecting the "Repair" option.
5. If repairing the installation does not work, try uninstalling all instances of SQL Server from your system using the instructions provided in the Microsoft documentation here.
6. After uninstalling all instances of SQL Server, try reinstalling SQL Server 2022.

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References:

• Uninstall an existing instance of SQL Server (Setup)
• Supported version and edition upgrades (SQL Server 2022)

Answer 2

I think this is a more precise answer than the AI-generated one.

The message Wait on the Database Engine recovery handle failed is a generic error that means that SQL Server did not start when Setup wanted to run configuration steps. To understand why it did not start, you need to look in the SQL Server errorlog, which you find in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL16.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\LOG\ERRORLOG.

If you see a message about 256 misaligned reads, you are running into a known issue where Windows 11 for some disk drives reports a sector size that SQL Server does not cope with. Microsoft has published an article with workarounds for the problem.

If you don't see the message about misaligned reads, feel free to upload the errorlog here, so we can look at it. You will need to rename to ERRORLOG.txt for the forum software to accept it.