I will be setting up an environment to repro an issue that we found in installing a SQL Server cluster. We had 2 Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise servers that we were to cluster and then put SQL 2k5 in a cluster as well.
We go to the point of installing the SQL Server in a cluster and just at the point of completing the install and removing the temporary files, a message came up and indicated failure. No real earth shattering message, but just that it failed because a Parameter was incorrect. That is it.
After we spent some time trying to reinstall and force it through and a support call with Microsoft, we and the support engineers observances were put to the test. The one thing that was noticed first by the support engineer, was that the server names in the Cluster Admin were not the same case (one was UPPER123 and one was lower393). We could not imagine that it could be that, but were willing to try anything. So with a little registry editing, we got the names in the Cluster Admin to be UPPER and LOWER. Then we attempted the install of SQL Server.
To our amazement, the install completed. We completed our install and then for good measure we rebooted the machines. Again to our amazement, the cluster would not start.
To finish a long story, we unclustered, ripped SQL out by hand and took the lower machine and removed it from the domain and renamed it with UPPER case and then rejoined the domain and reclustered and reinstalled SQL Server, and all was well.
I am going to repro that today in a test environment so that I can make sure that it repros, and then I am going to file a bug.
Any ideas from others that have done this, please feel free to comment.