SQL 2000 Service not starting after P2V / VMware tool Install or Update - SQL 2000 - An error 1053 - (the service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion) occurred while performing this service operation on the MSSQLServer service

SQL 2000 Service not starting after P2V / VMware tool Install or Update -

An error 1053 - (the service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion) occurred while performing this service operation on the MSSQLServer service.

Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

I have faced this issue a couple of times. When you get this error, usually you need to check for Service Accounts, try to turn on "Interact With Desktop" etc.

But in this case,

1) Service was working fine on a physical server. After P2V, it is not starting on VM

2) Service was working fine on a VM, and it failed after recent VMware tool upgrade/change. 

Fix

All that you need to do is to make sure that you have the below two DLLs 

msvcr71.dll 
msvcp71.dll

They should be be present under %systemroot%\system32 

If not, you can copy these DLLs from another server running same SQL version, or restore them from a backup. It is noticed that VMware tools sometimes mess up these two DLLs, which make SQL to fail. 

All the best! 

R.Hari