My unbridled enthusiasm was suddenly constrained when I during the Azure tutorial suddenly tripped over my first Azure hurdle. When trying to run my new “Hello Azure” application, I got an error message stating that:
Creating database DevelopmentStorageDb…
Failed to create database ‘DevelopmentStorageDb…’ : CREATE DATABASE permission denied in database ‘master’.
…So, I googled the problem and found this forum entry where the following solution is suggested:
You can try to connect “machinenamesqlexpress” via SQL Server Management Studio and grant permission to your logon user. It’s the default instance name.
Very well. There is only one problem. In my local SQL Server 2008 Express installation, which was installed with Visual Studio 2010, my Windows account does not have the sysadmin role. Furthermore, the sa account is not enabled for login. Thus, there is no user in the system which has the sysadmin role. Catch-22, it seems.
I was finally able to find this blog entry which explains how to recover a lost sa account password in SQL server 2005. Luckily, this approach also works for SQL Server 2008 Express. Voila!