Last time this happened to me I just changed the existing plan to "All Databases" and then changed it back to selected databases with the appropriate ones ticked--fixed the issue...

I believe I made that comment, and it was not ever intended to say that SELECT * should be removed--as you rightly say, it is a useful development tool. I...

I'm really not sure it makes such a difference. Presumably you're just using this data set on a local machine for development work, after all. It's also an impossible question...

The only holidays I'm getting this year are Christmas Day and Monday 28th December, and I'm only getting those because they're bank holidays in the UK! My colleague doesn't even...

If the MDF isn't attached as a database you could back it up by just copying the file somewhere else--it won't be locked if SQL server isn't using it.

Disk space cost isn't really relevant because of the simple reason that if the database was once 45Gb (or whatever) then it'll probably need to be that size again at...

I'd agree with Express Edition as well. The main limitations on 2008 Express are that it can't use more than 1Gb of RAM, only uses 1 CPU, and your databases...

You could do this with a single SQL statement, rather than having to add a dump device:

BACKUP DATABASE AdventureWorks TO DISK='Z:\SQLServerBackups\AdvWorksData.bak'

Does that work?

Just tested it with a database in SQL 2000 compatibility mode (80) and it still returned 12345, at least on my system. Could it have changed in a SQL service...

Are you still running SQL 2000? The question specified SQL 2005.

Yes, I found this bizarre behaviour the first time I encountered it. Just did a quick experiment on a SQL 2008 installation and I see it still does the same...

I'm unclear on what you're asking. The output from Perfmon already IS the Average Disk Queue Length, there's no calculation involved...and the values you've got there look absolutely fine.

I usually end up calling myself "factotum" on Internet fora and the like...seems appropriate to name myself as a jack of all trades, given that's what I usually end up...

Or else the account that the SQL Server service is running under doesn't have permissions to access that folder--quite possible if this is a really old database and the account...

Same mistake here...