Few months back I have wrote post about moving MASTER and MSDB database to new location in stand alone machine.

In recent past we had a situation where customer asked us to move MASTER database to new location, below are the steps I have taken:

1.     Connect to the Server
2.     Open Configuration Manager -> SQL Server Service
3.     Right Click and say Properties
4.     Click on the Start-up Parameter
5.     Remove start-up parameter (the highlighted one)

 -dOLDLocation\master.mdf
 -eOLDLocation\ErrorLog
 -lOLDLocation\mastlog.ldf

      6.     Add new start-up parameters with new values (per your configuration)

 -dNewLocation\master.mdf
 -eNewLocation\ErrorLog
 -lNewLocation\mastlog.ldf

      7.    Check and confirm which node is active

      8.    PAUSE current PASSIVE Node  to avoid fail-over

      9.    Take SQL Server resources offline, i.e. SQL Server, SQL Agent, MSDTC, SQLCLUSTER Name (do not take SQL Cluster IP Offline)

    10.    Copy MASTER.MDF and MASTLOG.LDF to NEW Location ( S:\SQLDATA, yours could be different)

    11.    Log into Cluster Administrator and bring SQL Server Resources online

    12.    Resume current PASSIVE Node

That's all, you should be able to see your master database on new location now!!!

-- Regards,

Hemantgiri S. Goswami (http://www.sql-server-citation.com )

Cross posting: http://www.pythian.com/news/35829/moving-master-database-to-new-location-in-sql-cluster/