When using any SQL Server 2008 or later version there is a possibility of getting the following error:

Element not found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070490) – SQL Server 2008 R2

This appears right after feature selection (with the installer failing – or the installer hangs). There are no specific logs that provide adequate information as to the cause. After a bit of pain I cluster validator re-test revealed that there was a ‘stale’ disk in the available storage (inside Cluster Manager). Searching the web of related instances the error was confirmed.

The error is caused if there is offline and removed disks inside the cluster (that are no longer presented to the server nodes). Removing the disks and re-running the installer fixed the problem.

(In my case the error was caused to the removal of a LUN that was no longer required – without deleting the disk from available storage)

 

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