Aaron Johnson Now with 50% less caffeine!

Restoring a .bak file to a SQL Server database

This is for my own benefit… when restoring a .bak file to a SQL Server database where the .bak file was not originally backed up from, right click –> All Tasks –> Restore Database –> From device –> Select Devices –> Add your .bak file. Click OK. Click the Options tab. Now on the left side you should see the Logical file name of the database from the .bak file. On the right side under the lable ‘Move to physical file name’, should be the path that the .bak file originally existed as. This field needs to be changed to the path & file name of the database you’re restoring too. After modifying those two fields, check the ‘Force restore over existing database’ and click ‘OK’.

Thanks for the 2003 May 14th “Restoring a .bak file to a SQL Server database” entry … that saved me a lot of work.

I also needed to execute about a hundred
“EXEC sp_changeobjectowner ‘foo.table_x’, ‘bar’”
but I finally got there.

Cheers,
– Eric Herman

Thanks. That was useful….

Good man!

Cheers for writing that SQL from .bak procedure, saved me time too.

This was very helpful. Saved me a lot of time.

Thanks

Larry is right.Site is very helpful.

This helped us too! Thanks a bunch!

Thanks a lot, it helped us a lot.

Thanks, was very helpful.

Thank you - Just what I needed!

I was about to give up on this restore and start executing hundreds of SQL commands until I read this blog entry. Appreciate the heads up.

thanks for the help, this was quick and easy to find thanks to google =]

Thank You. It was just what I needed

Great tip! Made life simple.

dude- this was the first google hit and was the one that did the job- THANKS!

WOW — thank you.. I was about to give up, as well.

Good trick.

i got stuck up doing this simple procedure, thanks for putting it up on here!

Nice Post - Gave me the exact infp I needed. Thanks

This is exactly what I needed. Just need to figure out why users can’t connect to the new sql server now.

Jason wrote:
This is exactly what I needed. Just need to figure out why users can’t connect to the new sql server now.

I’m encountering the same issue here…

This was really helpful. Saved me a lot of time.

thanks a lot.

Hi all - i have a sql .bak file of a sql server database. It won’t open in access. Will anything open this? THanks much!

What a simple and uncomplicated set of steps. Brevity is so underappreciated.

Many thanks

Thanks for the SQL instructions for restoring a SQL.bak file….

I’m new to all this SQL stuff and finding this sort of hands-on info is nearly imposible…

Thanks again…

top explanation. cheers nig

Excellent explanation as i forgot being so long since i restored a data base, top marks!

Very helpful, thanks a lot.

I am getting the deactivation error. The backup I made is from a different machine in D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\data\navdbsIBS.mdf and navdbsIBS.ldf. In my machine, the database is stored in C:. I followed the steps mentioned above but I am getting the deactivation error. It says the .mdf and .ldf files are incorrect , Use WITH MOVE to identifiy a valid location for the file.

Can anyone tell give me some input?

Wow, excellent help. Saved me a lot of time because it works. Thank you!!

Thx dude

This small walk through saved me tonight. Thank you!

Sweeeet !!! And on 50% less caffeine… Impressive !!!

Thanks, i’ve been messing with these errors until I typed in Google exactly what I wanted to do…

restore database from bak file

and got your site. Thanks again. You rule.

Thanks mate for the quick help. This is what I was looking for and it worked

Cheers,
Vijay

Brief and useful. Just what I was looking for..

This is Intresting.

Well can you suggest If I dont want to create the DB First. I am asking this as You can type the DB name in the Dropdown of the “restore to” on the Restore wizard

thanks Any ways.

Excellent work !!!

Hi
the article to restore database johnson worked lik a charm.

Cheers…

Yes, just like everyone else, thank you thank you thank you. I kept encountering an error, until I did a quick google, and you saved the day.

Have a good one.

Cheers,

Charles A.

We switched servers and didn’t realize our database was still being read from the old server. I have the .bak files but there are seven , each dated. When you restore the file, would it be all of them to restore or just the latest one? Also, would you need Enterprise Manager to restore your database w/ the .bak file and how long is that process approximately? Thank You!

A note - the name for the new mdf file has to be different than the existing mdf file for this to work.

WHERE do you right-click? I don’t get that option when I click on a db in my application. I am using MS SQL Maestro and I’m stuck trying to restore some dropped tables from a .BAK file.

So sad.

THANK YOU.

Awesome man, thanks!!!