Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

Fixing an Incorrect Option Setting

Setting a parameter value too high might cause SQL Server to crash during startup. For example, if you set the value of the memory option to a value that is higher than the physical memory on the machine, SQL Server does not start. In this case, you start SQL Server with the -f option, which causes SQL Server to start with the default parameter values (the same values used by the Setup program when you installed SQL Server). After SQL Server is running, you can change the incorrect value to the correct one and restart SQL Server without the -f option.