Why Cannot You Login into SQL Server with SQL Authentication Mode?
Friday, 28. October 2011
When you use windows admin account to log in to SQL server, usually there is no errors, but when logging in SQL server with SA user, you may not be able to access it for different reasons.
Reason 1: Disabled SQL server authentication mode
Step 1 Login SQL server with windows administrator, right-click the name of SQL Server, and then choose properties.
Step 2 Click security tab, in server authentication option, change it to SQL server and Windows authentication mode.
Step 3 Confirm and restart SQL server services.
Reason 2: Input a wrong SA password
Note that the password is case-sensitive. Check if you press caps lock key by mistake. If not, you may forget SA password unluckily, don’t worry, you can use a third-party software to reset SQL password soon.
MS SQL Server Password Unlocker could change any lost or forgotten SA and other user account password on MS SQL Server 2008/2005/2000 to a new one in seconds. No matter how long and complex the passwords are, once you import master.mdf to this program. Easy to use, no special computer skills required, and no need to reinstall SQL Server. See the below picture:
Reason 3 Disabled SA account
This problem often appears when using the SQL server at the beginning. When SQL server is installed, SA user is disabled by default.
Please do following to enable SA user.
Step 1 Right-click SA, and choose properties.
Step 2 Click status tab, and check enable in login option.
In a word, when you face login problem with SQL server, please check if you enabled SQL server authentication mode and SA account at first, and then make sure you have input correct SA password, otherwise, you may need to reset SQL password.
