Knowledgebase

Current SQL Server versions (up to SQL Server 2022) might have incompatibility issue with modern NVMe disks with system disk sector size greater than 4 KB. This causes the installation to fail at the final step with the following error:

Error waiting for the Database Engine recovery handle. Review SQL Server error logs for possible causes.

This can be fixed by adding a registry key ForcedPhysicalSectorSizeInBytes with value 4095 to force the PhysicalSectorSize size to be in the supported range (4KB).

Please follow these steps to fix the issue:

1. Run PowerShell as an administrator.
2. Run the following command to add the registry key:
   

   New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\stornvme\Parameters\Device" -Name   "ForcedPhysicalSectorSizeInBytes" -PropertyType MultiString        -Force -Value "* 4095"​

3. Un-install SQL Server and Reboot the server.
4. Verify the fix (explained below) and Install SQL Server again.
5. Done. It should work!

Verify the fix

After rebooting the system and before you re-install SQL server, apply this PowerShell command to check the PhysicalSectorSize value:

Get-Disk | ft Number,FriendlyName,LogicalSectorSize,PhysicalSectorSize

Output should look like this where PhysicalSectorSize is 4096:

Number FriendlyName               LogicalSectorSize PhysicalSectorSize
------ ------------               ----------------- ------------------
     0 SAMSUNG MZQL21T9HCJR-00A07               512               4096

more information on learn.microsoft.com website.