Restoring .bak file from SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition
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A customer has provided me with a back up file which he says is from SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition. I'm unable to restore it in either of the following instances I have on my machine
1. SQL Server 2014 (via Management Studio 2014)
2. SQL Server 2005 (via Management Studio 2005)In both cases, if I try to use the GUI to restore, it just doesn't show any backups in the file.
When I restore with the following backup command...
RESTORE DATABASE Framework FROM DISK = 'C:\SQLBU\Framework.bak'I get the following error in 2005 and 2014...
Msg 3241, Level 16, State 0, Line 3
The media family on device 'C:\SQLBU\Framework.bak' is incorrectly formed. SQL Server cannot process this media family.
Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 3
RESTORE DATABASE is terminating abnormally.I download SQL Server 2005 compact edition, but the install didn't allow me to create a named instance? (Not sure if something went wrong, I tried to google to see how the compact edition works, but it is so old I'm not getting any useful results) Can anyone tell me 'how do I create a 'compact edition' instance' (so I can try to restore to that) ? Or any other solution that will enable me to restore the .bak (so I can port it to a newer version of SQL Server)
Thanks to anyone who can help! 🙂
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Do you know how the backup was taken, was it with any third party products?
You may also want to try executing:RESTORE HEADERONLY
FROM DISK = 'C:\SQLBU\Framework.bak'If that doesn't work it could just be a corrupt backup.
Sue
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The backup is auto generated, so I only know it is 'SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition'
Thanks for the suggestion, but the 'HEADERONLY' command generates the exact same error. - dave 12950 - Wednesday, April 26, 2017 4:15 PM
Duh...now that I thought about it, CE backups aren't in the same format anyway. I thought they had a different extension by default as well. You used to use some export tool that comes with CE and it exports the database to a .sql file. Maybe the customer renamed it and it is a .sql file? Who knows - it might be worth making a copy, renaming the extension to .sql and see if you can open it in notepad.
You probably need to ask the customer what steps they took to make the backup.Sue
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Thanks for the reply.
The backup is auto generated by his legacy software, and named with a .bak extension. Opening it in notepad shows a mixture of binary symbols and some readable sql text....(screen capture attached)
- I haven't messed around with my HP Jornada in years but I'm pretty sure you really didn't do that. I copied the database file for the backups and it wasn't a bak file. That was the Microsoft approach to backups for it. To move the database to SQL Server, I had to use some export command from the command line to create an .sql file but it wasn't a Microsoft product. It had nothing but sql statements.
He has some other software that generates the backups then - no idea what it could be but I would doubt it is usable by SQL Server due to the format differences.
But about your install - it doesn't have instances. You just run the setup it to install it. It's a file based system so more like Access than SQL Server.
There were compact edition tools you could use - check your SQL Server 2005 install as that may have them. In Management Studio you could connect to it - the connect to server had an option for CE once you installed the tools. I know there are other tools out there but for some reason I can't remember the file extension for CE. Searching on that will probably pull up different tools. While it's still open, Try searching CodePlex - they probably have something up there.Sue
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Thanks a million for pointing me in a good starting direction. Really appreciate your time!!
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