Hello everyone,
The problem is already resolved, but I just want to share it and also figure out why it happened?
I ran into a very weird problem recently. The SQL server's services (MSSQLserver and SQLServerAgent) couldn't start. After investigating, I noticed that somehow the two .exe files associated with those two services got renamed:
sqlagent.exe was renamed to sqlagnt.exe
sqlagent.dll was renamed to sqlagnt.dll
sqlservr.exe was renamed to sqlsrvr.exe
Notice that in the above, the filenames with letter "e" is removed. I then made a copy of each file, and renamed them back to the original names. Then I tried to start the services again, but it tells me the SQLBOOT.DLL is either corrupt or tampered with. So I went into the BINN folder to check, and the SQLBOOT.DLL file was gone completely. Fortunately I copied a back-up file over, and everything is working fine now.
Anyone know how this could have happened? This seemed very weird. Could it be a virus? I performed a virus scan but nothing was found as well.