OK.... that worked..... what other than the -m at the beginning of the string is different from what was installed there?

Also, now... to do a master db...

-dM:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.INST4\MSSQL\DATA\master.mdf;-eM:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.INST4\MSSQL\Log\ERRORLOG;-lM:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.INST4\MSSQL\DATA\mastlog.ldf

This is SQL 2008 64 bit Standard Edition SP1 on Win2008 I have 4 instances on...

The M drive has master, model, msdb and temp all on them. It is there and the application data files are on a seperate drive. Yes, when I...

OK, I went into the Configuration manager and added the -c:-m parameters and SQL Server will not start. I see this error in the event log

FCB::Open failed: Could not...

I involved Microsoft with our issue, spent days and days on this and they pointed to the back end storage. Problem was that the back end storage performance stuff...

Unfortunately this is one of the most difficult problems to track down. I have seen this twice and even Microsoft could never tell me exactly what the problem was.

I reset it to 100MB. I looked at the autogrowth and it had been autogrowing at that rate all along until yesterday and somehow it was at that high...

Yes you ARE correct. I had a brain cramp. Thanks for correcting me.

We don't have any very large databases so I typically schedule UPDATE STATS jobs weekly or monthly just to make sure stats are fully updated eventhough I have auto stats...

When I migrated 35 DBs to our new SQL Server I started up Profiler then went through Mgt Studio and did the restore with all of the file path changes...

That could be tricky to do without a place to test it out. At minimum you will need a seperate drive for the new SQL2008. You will need...

I think there needs to be a healthy balance in any consolidation effort. We have a TON of servers in our datacenter that run one app or host one...

It is amazing to me what hoops all of you had to jump through.... I am NOT looking forward to my next install soon of ACTIVE/ACTIVE Win2008 cluster with SQL...

You need to install Visual Studio 2003 SP1 (as documented in BOL) and SQL 2005 SP2 or SP3, and click to proceed on the Compatibility Warning messages during the initial...

Why must you install Visual Studio to get SQL Server to function? I have not had to do that on my SQL 2005 installs?