http://blogs.msdn.com/lcris/archive/2007/11/14/sql-server-2005-how-to-recover-when-the-service-master-key-smk-is-not-accessible.aspxI wrote earlier today a reply on this topic on the public forums, but now that I checked, the reply appears to have got lost, although I still entertain the hope it may only have got delayed and will appear there in 24 hours. Anyway, this is the reasonen-USCommunityServer 2.1 SP1 (Build: 61025.2)