Have you forgot SQL Server Password? than don’t worry this handout will help you to Reset SQL SA Password for both User and System Administrator account.
“Password” the common way to prove our identity, and for systems it’s the way of authentication. We use them to make our system secure and safe from unauthorized access. In the Phase of digitization, to make things secure we often use passwords. We as a human have tendency to forget things easily, sometimes we also get confused with their complexity and unable to remember them. That’s the time when the need of Password reset and recovery methods arises.
MS SQL is an RDBMS (Relational Database Management System), which helps other applications to:
- Store Data
- Retrieve Data
- Access Data from same computer or another across the network
MS SQL Server is secured with the passwords to keep users and administrators data inaccessible from unauthorized access. The users have different passwords and System admin have different String. In case if you have forgotten any of the keys there are ways to Reset SQL SA Password. You can do it manually as well as there are tools available to do the task on ease. Manually some basic tactics (Using Windows Authentication, Single-User Mode and Command Prompt) can help you in SQL Server SA password reset.
How to Restore or Reset SQL SA Password?
Method # 1 Command Prompt Method:
- Open Start. Click on the Windows logo on the bottom left corner. This will open the Start Menu.
- Search for Command Prompt. Type “Command Prompt” and wait for the command prompt to appear.
- Right click on the Command Prompt. A drop down menu will appear.
- Click Run as Administrator. It’s in the dropdown menu.
- Click on Yes when Prompted. This will be a decision confirmation to open the command prompt.
- Enter Command. Type osql –L and press Enter.
- Enter next command with Server Name. Type OSQL –S server –E Replace “server” with server name and press Enter.
- Create a new Password. Type EXEC sp_password NULL, ‘passwor1d’, ‘sa’ “password” is replaced by the password that you want to use and then press Enter.
- Execute the command. Type GO, then press Enter. Type exit, then press Enter to exit OSQL.
- Try to log-in to SQL Server. Go for login using your credentials and new password.
Method # 2 SQL Database Server Management Studio:
- Click on Start and navigate to Microsoft SQL Server and open SQL Server Management Studio.
- Now, connect to SQL Server Database Instance using Windows Authentication.
- Click on Security and go to Logins Object than right click on SA User and select Properties option.
- Now, provide New Password and Confirm New Password. Hit on OK button.
Method # 3 Using Configuration Manager (Only for SQL Server 2012)
- Run Configuration Manager on your System and stop instance of the SQL for which, you are resetting the Password.
- Now, open Properties on SQL Server Instance and select Advanced option.
- Add -m in the starting of line in startup parameter and click OK button.
- Initiate SQL Server Instance and Run the Command Prompt.
- Type sqlcmd and hit Enter.
- Now you can add a new or existing SQL account in Systemadmin server role. Now run command T-SQL and replace DOMAIN/Username with the account to be added.
Hope that you will get into it and will be able to reconfigure SQL server password because if any single flaw is there in the above steps then you will not be able to reset the Password.To reduce the complexity, I’ve found some tools which can be useful to reset as well as restore the old password and doesn’t need this much job. The tool which I’m going to suggest is SQL Database Recovery tool, which comes handy and easy to use. It is a good solution to instantly unlock SQL Server user accounts and SA (System Administrator) in a very safe manner.
So without wasting your time, cross your fingers and reset SQL SA Password.
