You can connect as follows

1.) osql -E -Sservername

or

2.) osql -E -Sservername,portnumber (eg. osql -E -Ssystem,1433)

Where -E = windows authentication

-S...

You can create database snapshots to read the readonly db. Refer the below links.

How to: Create a Database Snapshot (Transact-SQL)

Creating Database Snapshot

Deleting Database Snapshot

You can do the same in 2005 also.

Go to the 4th screen of the scripting wizard, here you can select the script option then select "file per object" option ,...

Try the following command.

sp_attach_db 'dbname','y:\xxx\Data.mdf','y:\xxx\Data2.ndf','y:\xxx\Log.ldf'

Before executing change the dbname with correct database name and change the path y:\xxx with the correct path where the file exists.

Can you check the connection manager inside the Maintainence plan whether its connecting correctly.

What is the file extension you are holding??

If you have .mdf and .ldf files then you can use sp_attach_db stored procedure to attach the db

If you have .mdf file alone...

Refer the below links

GUI ----> DTExecUI.exe

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms141707.aspx

Commadline utility ----> DTExec.exe

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms138023.aspx

2.)You can't drop the caching database when the database is in use, hence you need to kill caching database connections and then try to drop the db. I think this...

[font="Courier New"]Refer the below link for more on the topic

http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/10894_2197931_1[/font]

Check the below forum for why not to shrink the db

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic412213-169-1.aspx

[font="Courier New"]You can do the following

$) Open the DTS in source server

$) Save the DTS as structured storage file (i.e dtsname.dts)

$) Copy the file to the destination server

$) Right click...

Yes thats right, it will create the physical files and then start restoring the db

[font="Courier New"]You can convert current date as you required by below piece of code

select convert(varchar(25),getdate(),101)

You can change the last variable value from 101 to 121 and each value represent one...

MS won't release SP5 for SQL2k since official support for SQL server 2000 will be ended by mid of 2008.

Try connecting the servername in FQDN format else use ip address as shown below

Eg.) servername.eur.nsroot.net,1433 -->FQDN servername

169.187.0.25,1433