Today we embark on a somewhat sad journey.  A couple of days ago, I told you a story about a vendor and the miscommunication of specifications.  Today the chickens have come home to roost.  We must replace the SQL Server 2008R2 clusters with 2008 clusters.  These were perfectly good clusters, fine tuned and ready to burst out of the starting gate and win the triple crown, well you understand what I mean.  I’ve grown attached to these clusters as they were the first ones that I have ever personally built from the purchase order to production.

Today, we will uninstall both of the SQL Server nodes and then begin the reinstallation of the previous version.  We will run the installer on the passive node first.  In the installer go to the maintenance section and choose “Remove node from a SQL Server failover cluster.”  After this is complete then we will go to the active node and go through the same process.  Tomorrow we will look at the reinstallation of SQL Server 2008 SP3.  Enjoy!