Sorry, I just didn't check the avatars correctly sgmunson and jasona.work.   A newbie, but still able to identify user names. 🙂

Yes, both servers in the same room so...

Thanks SSCoach, never heard of a linked server (only of linked tables between, say, Excel & SQLServer), but that sounds an interesting method. I'll digg down a bit.

Thanks...

Thanks Lynn, your code is clarifying. Still I'm confused as to why results display different. I probably don't get the different charsets involved? Any help welcome.

If I run...

Apologies all working fine.

I'm still in doubt re cleaning certain characters (' ', '-', maybe others). Should I do that in a single SQL command (e.g....

Thanks if that's the case !

But when I checked the HASHBYTES reference it seemed the entry is only varchar, nvarchar or varbinary.  Maybe I misunderstood...

That worked fine, and I learnt something new !!

Thanks for the prompt reply. As said not very familiar with code chars, or how to switch from one to another.

• Does SQL Server then use UNICODE by default   (while R...

Thanks GilaMonster, that worked fine.

One last question:  being this a SQL script, if I run this .sql on a new system, would that recreate from scratch all the...

Thanks Jeff, perfect solution. Testing it now.

I also found this explanation, pretty much in the same line, that also seems easy enough:

http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2012/11/20/sql-server-using-rand-in-user-defined-functions-udf/

Thanks Jacob, that's really useful.

Some feedback for other people in the same situation:

-The issue was caused by lack of space in the disk. I couldn't do much about that (as...

Snapshot discarded then !! I've got the impression that this must be a lot simpler, though?

E.g, I've noticed that in SQL Management Studio if you right-click the DB, then Tasks>Generate...

Thanks Lowell, that really helps.

In case I decided to go the snapshot track using a script like:

CREATE DATABASE <name>

ON <file_spec1> {,file_spec2}

AS SNAPSHOT OF <source_db_name>

my questions would be:

-Does the snapshot...

Thanks Matt !!

I've tried this and, to my surprise, it seems to work. Very happy and a big thanks!!

I can't mark it as a defintiive solution as I still don't...