Using Db Maint, Working with…

Restore

This dialog allows you do perform an interactive restore operation. The dialog does not use the backup history, which SQL Server maintains in the msdb database. Instead, you get to this dialog by right clicking on a backup set in a backup device and select “Restore”. If you want to do a restore based on the backup history tables (which can assist you with restoring the latest database backup and subsequent log backups in one operation), please use Enterprise Manager.

The dialog looks different depending on the SQL Server version. Below is how the dialog looks when you are logged on to SQL Server 7.0 or SQL Server 2000:

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Select the database name into which you want to do the restore. You can overwrite the name in the drop-down box. If the database name that you enter doesn’t exist, it will be created.

You might have to select the “Overwrite” checkbox, depending on whether SQL Servers “safety check” triggered or not. This safety check protects you from overwriting files or databases by mistake. Db Maint issues the RESTORE statement with the REPLACE parameter when you check this.

You also have the option to move files during the restore operations. The files original location is stored in the backup header by SQL Server when you perform the backup. If a file already exists, for instance, and you don’t want to overwrite the file, specify new filename and path here. Db Maint issues the RESTORE statement with the MOVE parameter when changes have been made in this list box.

If you are about to restore a log backup, you can specify that SQL Server should stop processing the backup after a specified time. This can be very useful if you know that an accident has happened at a certain time, and you want to restore to just before that accident.

In the “Recovery options” frame, you specify whether Db Maint will issue the RESTORE statement with the RECOVERY or NORECOVERY option. You should choose NORECOVERY for all but the last RESTORE operation.

If you are running Db Maint against SQL Server 6.5, this dialog is considerably simpler. This is because the database has to exist before the restore operation. Select the database name into which you want to restore. Specify if you want Db Maint to stop at a certain time if you do a log restore.