Error during installation of SQL Server 2022 Express - Exit code (Decimal) - Wait on the Database Engine recovery handle failed

Question

Hi, I tried to install SQL Server 2022 Express a couple of times and I keep getting the error:
Exit code (Decimal): -2061893606
Error description: Wait on the Database Engine recovery handle failed

I know it's a generic error and I tried to check the files Summary_BOOK-UI65EDKIV3_20250126_135013.txt and details.txt (which I'm not able to upload for some reason), but I can't find the solution, I'm kind of new in the field, could someone help me solve the issue, please?

Answer 1

The message Wait on the Database Engine recovery handle failed is indeed a generic error. It 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.SQLEXPRESS\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.