Forgot SQL Server Password

Question

I installed SQL Server 2005 sometime ago and forgot the administrator password I set during setup. How can I connect to SQL server now?

EDIT: I thin

Answer 1

Thanks a lot cowgod

It works Fine. I have Logged in to SQL Server with windows authentication mode. Then opened a new query window. There I typed these two commands by prssing F5.

First run exec sp_password @new='changeme', @loginame='sa'

Then alter login sa enable

Answer 2

For these steps to work, you need to be an admin on box where SQL Server is installed.

• Stop SQL Server from configuration manager
• Start SQL Server in single user mode

• Add this -mSQLCMD command as one of the start up parameters, by right clicking the service and going into startup parameters section as shown in screenshot below and start SQL Server

• Now connect to SQLSERVER from SQLCMD (open command prompt as admin) like below:

  sqlcmd -s servername\instancename
  

  And run below command:

  USE [master]
  GO
  CREATE LOGIN [BUILTIN\Administrators] FROM WINDOWS WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master]
  GO
  EXEC master..sp_addsrvrolemember @loginame = N'BUILTIN\Administrators', @rolename = N'sysadmin'
  GO
  

  Above command adds all local users as sysadmins. You may change this and add a user like or you can make another user sysadmin and remove BUILTIN\Administrators

• Once this is done, you need to now stop SQL Server and remove -mSQLCMD parameter and restart SQL Server

References:
Help : I lost sa password and no one has System Administrator (SysAdmin) permission. What should I do?

Answer 3

You don't need to pay for any reset tools to do this. Start the instance in single user mode and you can create a new login with sysadmin permissions/

See this Pinal Dave link.

Answer 4

If there's no other user with sysadmin privileges but sa, SQL Server should be restarted with -m option for single-user mode. Then you can connect to this SQL Server instance and you're able to add other users with sysadmin role or to execute exec sp_password.

Pinal Dave explains here - http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2009/02/10/sql-server-start-sql-server-instance-in-single-user-mode/ - how to add -m with SQL Server Configuration Manager: right-click server service, go to Advanced tab and add -m; (notice semicolon) in Startup Parameters.

Another way is to stop SQL Server instance in Services and to run it manually from the command line like this:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\Binn\sqlservr.exe" -m -sSQLEXPRESS

I had to do that for SQL Server 2008 as it didn't appear in SQL Server 2008 R2 Configuration Manager. Exect command line can be found with in service properties.

Answer 5

Try running the following commands at the command prompt (assuming your Server name is SQLEXPRESS):

osql -E -S .\SQLEXPRESS
exec sp_password @new='changeme', @loginame='sa'
go
alter login sa enable
go
exit

Once you have completed these steps, try to login with username sa and password changeme.

Answer 6

Unless you set it up to only accept SQL Server authentication, you can log on with integrated security using the administrator user of the domain and/or machine.