We don't normally backup the "M" databases, but we're definitely considering it now. The one that has the user data is "supposed" to be backed up daily, but never thought...

Solved! We were able to grab the master.mdf and mastlog.ldf from an image backup a couple of months back. I replaced the files and started up SQL ... it didn't...

Also I can only start using net start MSSQLSERVER /f /T3608 ... using the normal "sqlservr" command from the Binn directory just results in:

2018-12-19 08:43:55.35 spid4s     ...

We tried starting it with 3605 and 3608 ... same behaviour. The master.mdf and mastlog.ldf aren't very big, like maybe 20MB. The IT tech said that the VM was reporting...

Just checked. SQL 2016 Developer is FREE. I'm currently backing up my databases as we speak and downloading it.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/application-development

I thought so... but I wanted to check first before I went through the upgrade.

Thanks!

I was merging the results of two flat file loads. Both flat files have unique data. They both have same # of columns with the same data types.

I need to...

Format file with BCP ... hmm. Didn't think of that. I'll have to lookup the details and try it out.