Installation issues

Installed this on a VM and hoping to do a bit of testing of various sorts.

However, I followed the same procedure as previously followed - only this time it hasnt worked.

Its on a 2k3 machine, and whats happening is the following:

1. install SQL2k
2. install sp4 SQL2k
3. install SDP
4. expect it to start up

step 4 isnt happening....it gets so far, and then the service wont actually start after the installation - nor is the DB being created in the MSSQL instance.

No idea what I have done wrong.

Eventvwr is showing the following:

The ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus service was successfully sent a start control.
The ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus service entered the running state.

everything looking ok....

then it goes to

The ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus service terminated unexpectedly.

The boot.log in server/default/log dir is about as useful as a chocolate teapot on this occasion...

any help greatly appreciated. I cant believe that something as basic as installing it has thrown up a problem i cant get around at the moment to be honest :(