Complete Restore Of All Databases

  • Hello all,

    We have been having some difficulty with one of our Windows 2003 servers.  The server continually reboots.  After trying many different things we are left with wiping the box and starting over.  The server is also running Sql Server 2000 sp3.  All of the production databases have been moved for the time being to other servers. 

    My question is after we reinstall everything on the box including SQL Server what order should I recover the databases in so that we don't lose the jobs, backup history, security information?

    I mean do I recover the system databases first or create the production databases first.  I think it should be the production databases then the system databases but I am not really sure.

    Thanks in advance for any help.

    Bryant

     

  • If you are going to wipe and rebuild the server just make sure that you have good backups of all your user databases plus the msdb database.  Use the scripts here (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;246133) to script all of the logins from your current server and store the output somewhere.  If you have any linked servers defined you will also want to script those out or you'll have to manually recreate them. 

    When the server is rebuilt and SQL Server is installed and patched to the SAME level it was when the backups were taken, you can restore msdb (which contains your dts packages, jobs, and backup history etc...), then run the login script you created to re-create the logins (you will want to at least comment out the sa login before you run the script and maybe others that you might create during the install/patch process).  Now you can restore your user databases.

    If your user databases are now being hosted on other servers, the backup history for the time that they are on these other servers will obviously be lost unless you want to attempt to selectively extract it from the msdb databases on those servers and import it to your newly rebuilt server (not something I'd recommend).

    You could try restoring the master database, but I've found it much easier to script out the logins and linked servers as I described. 

    HTH

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    If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek

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  • Thanks dc, that sounds like a plan.  That is a nice sp from microsoft.

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