Baten ICT

The clean way of removing the witness is by issuing this command while connected to the principal: ALTER DATABASE foo SET WITNESS OFF; Sometimes however, both partners have been dismantled. In that case this will work: Start witness SQL Server in single user mode. Connect my instance with an admin connection. Delete orphaned entries in sys.syslogshippers. Restart SQL in multi user mode. Source: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ialonso/2011/12/13/how-can-you-drop-the-witness-of-a-mirroring-session-when-the-partners-have-been-dismantled/