Incremental backup being identified as Differential

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Incremental backup being identified as Differential

PurpleLady

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Points: 7819
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November 18, 2005 at 9:14 am

#166063

I am in the replacing a production server. One of the jobs being transfered is a database restore from our ISP. This database is in warm-standby mode and as such is read-only. I am able restore the full database without any problems. However when I issue the incremental restore
Restore Log International
From Disk = N'network address'
With Standby = 'e:\Undo.dat'
I receive the message "The backup set in file 'network address' waqs created by a BACKUP DATAABSE WITH DIFFERENTIAL and can not be used for this restore operation". However, this same backup set works on the current production server, and I have an identical process for another product which has already been moved to the new server which works fine.
Both servers are running SQL Server 8.00.818. The server being replaced is running Windows 2000 sp3 and the new server is running Windows 2003 sp1. I thought at 1st this was a problem until I remembered that I use the identical process on a different database without a problem.
I haven't found anything resembling this googling. Does anybody else have an idea? Thanks in advance.

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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SQLBill SSC Guru Points: 51440 More actions · Answer 1

Did the log backup get overwritten by a differential backup? BTW-Differential Backup is Microsoft SQL Server's term for an incremental backup. What you are doing is restoring a Transactional Log backup.

-SQLBill

PurpleLady SSCertifiable Points: 7819 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks. The same log file works on one server but not the other. I thought I had a problem pulling the log from the ftp site, so I copied the production file to the new location. I got the same error. Then I changed the location to the network path. Same error. Since I was using a stored procedure, I copied the code to query analyzer and executed it - same error.

SQLBill SSC Guru Points: 51440 More actions · Answer 3

Have you tried RESTORE DATABASE command, vice RESTORE LOG just to see if it works?

-SQLBill

PurpleLady SSCertifiable Points: 7819 More actions · Answer 4

I tried the Restore Database and it worked! Which is not a good thing since it restored on the 1st server as a Log. I'm following up with the systems guys to make sure we have all the same service packs etc... Although what I've been able to check indicate that we do.

SQLBill SSC Guru Points: 51440 More actions · Answer 5

Are you sure it's the same backup file being restored? It really sounds like you restored a log on one server, but a differential on another.

Could a backup have been done to the tape in between restores? Is there more than one backup on the tape?

-SQLBill

David Brountas SSC Veteran Points: 204 More actions · Answer 6

One of the things you can try is to look at the RESTORE HEADERONLY COMMAND of the files to see how SQL has marked the file header. Are you using the move command on the new server?

David.

PurpleLady SSCertifiable Points: 7819 More actions · Answer 7

Thanks... I did check the file header and it is marked as a differential. So I guess I have to redo the process. My main question is why it would work as a transaction log in production. This process has been in place for more than a year without any problems. It's only moving it to the new server that it shows up.