Cannot Restore Service Master Key

• dimadd2005

  Valued Member

  Points: 63

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  September 1, 2015 at 8:07 am

  #1823639

  If you change your service account on the second machine to local System.

  and then restore your master keys it just work.:-)

• Perry Whittle

  SSC Guru

  Points: 233866

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  September 21, 2015 at 9:19 am

  #1828121

  dimadd2005 (9/1/2015)

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  If you change your service account on the second machine to local System.

  and then restore your master keys it just work.:-)

  The point is you don't restore the SMK, it's generated based on the machine account and the user account running the sql server service. You do not need to restore the SMK in order to move a TDE protected database. You just need a backup\restore of the certificate used by the database in order to restore to another server

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  "Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉