Do System Databases Ever Get Corrupted? And if so, what to do ?

  • I have a quick question: Has anybody ever encountered the problem of system databases being corrupted? If you find your system db's corrupted, what do you do ?

  • Yes they do, just like user databases do. There's nothing special about the system databases that will save them from having the IO subsystem mangle their files.

    With the system databases most repairs don't work, either because the tables are all system (like master and model) or because repair can have lingering effects if it deletes the wrong stuff (MSDB). Hence the generally recommended fix for corrupt system databases is restore from backup.

    That's why it's important to have backups of the system databases and to run integrity checks on them, just like on user databases.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

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