Hi all... I'm having such a terriable time trying to setup this SQL 2012 Cluster. I get as far as the Server Configuration screen and I have to supply domain service accounts to for my SQL Services. Regardless of what I enter (limited domain account or even Domain Admin account) . I always get the error "The SQL Server Service Account Login or Password is not valid" I cannot continue with my setup past this point. I have tried everything from using differnt accounts with different security credentials (right up to domain admin), I have also added user accounts in the "log on as service" under the local security policies... and none of which has fixed my issue. Anyone else experience this? Terry

Try launching the setup by right click and "run as administrator"

I have also tried that as well....

Explain me about your environment and how you configured it. I am sure you get good help in here.

Hi Terry, The error message typically seems happen when you use domain accounts as service account. If the Activity Directory Service (ADS) is not available currently, so the setup cannot valid the domain accounts you specify. For more information, please refer to http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlforum/archive/2011/04/19/forum-faq-how-do-i-resolve-sql-server-setup-cannot-valid-the-service-accounts-error-message-during-the-setup.aspx. If you have any problem, please feel free to let me know. Thanks. Maggie Luo TechNet Community Support

This is a sql 2012 cluster setup.. Those options are not available to me

I never configured the Cluster as that responsibility falls on our server team. But its a basic two node cluster with shared SAN space and a Quorum Drive. Both computers actually reside in the same datacenter on the same network on the same domain. The both have an interanl network (heartbeat) and standard network. I'm going throught he setup with no issues until come accross the setting up sql service accounts.. I get two errors one for SQL Agent and one for DATabase engine... I have looked in the detail.txt file for this setup and found the following snap shot (I've changed my domain and user account to domain1 and user1); (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:54 Slp: Sco: Attempting to check if user account domain1\user1 exists (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:54 Slp: Sco: Attempting to look up AD entry for user domain1\user1 (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:54 Slp: Sco.User.OpenRoot - root DirectoryEntry object already opened for this computer for this object (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:54 Slp: Sco.User.LookupADEntry - Attempting to find user account domain1\user1 (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:54 Slp: Sco: Attempting to check if container 'WinNT://domain1' of user account exists (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:54 SQLEngine: --InputValidator: Engine: Validation for account domain1\user1 failed. Access is denied Slp: Sco: Attempting to check if user account domain1\user1 exists (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:41 Slp: Sco: Attempting to look up AD entry for user domain1\user1 (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:41 Slp: Sco.User.OpenRoot - root DirectoryEntry object already opened for this computer for this object (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:41 Slp: Sco.User.LookupADEntry - Attempting to find user account domain1\user1 (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:41 Slp: Sco: Attempting to check if container 'WinNT://domain1' of user account exists (06) 2013-04-09 16:03:42 ACE: The credentials you provided for the SQL Server Agent service are invalid. To continue, provide a valid account and password for the SQL Server Agent service. I've tried this setup using local admin accounts and domain admin accounts. I have also tried to supply domain admin user account to run the service. At this point it looks as if the account I am installing SQL cluster with cannot query the AD to validate the user accounts. And I am at a loss as to why....

Problem Resolved.... The domain account used to log in to do the install had domain admin and enterprise admin privilages. But there was a user/computer policy that prevented me from querying the AD and it was not getting overridden by the DomainAdmin or Enterprise Admin rights. Removed the user/computer policy attached to my account and installation worked fine... I had to do this in co-ordination with our AD administrator as policy states I cannot do changes... thus the amount of time to fix the issue.... Hope this helps someone else because I had engaged MS yesterday and we could not fix the issue... Terry