Cloud & SQLSailor

Cloud, Databases & Beyond!

File format is not valid! Error during SQL 2008 R2 Developer Edition Install


Recently I received an error while installing SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Edition.The error was saying about ‘File format is invalid’.

Resolution : This erorr comes up when you have a corrupt sql setup.Solution is to download the setup once again from MSDN or VLSC site.

You also need to ensure that the ISO file which is downloaded from the site is properly extracted using a tool like Winrar(recommended).

I love to hear if you have faced this error anytime before and was there a different fix which was applied.

4 responses to “File format is not valid! Error during SQL 2008 R2 Developer Edition Install”

  1. J Avatar
    J

    Hi,

    I ran into this issue today. It’s the first time we’ve tried to install SQL 2008 R2, and I hit the wall right after the step to enter the product key. The .iso was downloaded from the MSDN site (as is most of our MS software that we have licenses for). The product key is pre-entered, so I simply hit next during the install….and, crash. “SQL Server 2008 has encountered an error – File Format is Invalid”.

    That’s it. Nothing more detailed (thanks once again Microsoft). I tried the download again, same failure. I’m going to try burning the .iso to a disk to see if that makes any difference…perhaps something was lost during the extraction.

    Anyway, if you come across a solution, I’d love to hear it!

    Thanks,
    J.

    Reply
    1. anupvarier Avatar
      anupvarier

      Hey J,

      Absolutely,this error is because of a corrupt download.

      I had to download the file once again from the VLSC site and did an extract using Winrar to disk.This solved my problem.

      Let me know if you still face an issue after downloading and extracting to disk.

      -Anup

      Reply
      1. Teo Teokovics Avatar
        Teo Teokovics

        Absolutely not about the corrupt download!!! I have a downloaded .iso and i used to install once without any problem. On another machine i’ve got this error. So the installer is absolutely good!

  2. Anup Avatar
    Anup

    Hey Teo,

    Corrupt download is one of the reasons and that has been tested out.

    In your case it might be something else.Are you trying install from a network share ? If yes,then you have to try from local disk.

    You will need to analyse the log file located in [Example – C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap] folder to analyze more on this issue.

    Reply

Leave a reply to J Cancel reply

Explore