Installing a Second Instance

Hi,
I'm trying to install a 2nd instance on a cluster.
We've setup two cluster groups C101TC001 and C101TC002, one for each instance.
I've stopped all the services and managed to get the installation to run,
but it won't allow me to apply the Service Pack (3a).
It reports an error
An error has occurred while creating virtual resources for clustering. Can
not create a file when that file already exists.
This then invalidates the instance.
Can anyone assist?
Thanks
Bev
After this I'm unable to get the instance registered or even started.
The error message that you got can be due to various reasons. Here is one Microsoft Knowledge base articles that has the same error (but as I said you may be having a
different issue)
BUG: The Setup program of SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 2 or a later version may stop responding in a Windows clustering environment if there is an offline database
http://support.microsoft.com/default...B;EN-US;320524
This KB says the cause is "This problem occurs because Setup program cannot access the database.
During installation in a Windows Clustering environment, Setup program must query the user databases to make sure that all the database files are on disk resources that
have the correct dependencies and the virtual SQL Server resource. The virtual SQL Server resource is required for the failover support. When a database is offline, Setup
program cannot access the database. "
I understand you are installing SP3a and the above KB is for SP2 but one can still get similar error message.
You last point stated that "After this I'm unable to get the instance registered or even started." I think you will need to first concentrate on why this instance is not starting.
Anyways to be able to apply SP3a, the sql instance needs to be running. So, need to troubleshoot why this instance is not coming online. See what errors you get when
you try to being this SQL Server resource online. Try starting it from command promt and see if that works outside the cluster. The errors in SQL Errorlog, NT App, System
logs and cluster.log should be helpful to troubleshoot this further.
Best Regards,
Uttam Parui
Microsoft Corporation
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