SQL Server backup restore issues? - sql

Ok, so I'm having a bit of an issue - I executed some code on my SQL Server and didn't realize that I didn't have the WHERE bit selected. Of course, when I saw the "608 rows affected" rather than "1 row affected", I freaked a bit.
Luckily, I have a backup saved, but for some reason, I'm getting a couple issues. Now, I took the server down, so I know that it's not being used by anyone, but it's giving me the following error
"Restore failed for Server 'myserver'.
System.Data.sqlclient.sqlerror: Exclusive access could not be obtained
because the database is in use. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo)"
I saw something that stated I should be using
Alter Database Databases
SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE
RESTORE DATABASE PRODUCT
FROM DISK = ''
but I'm having three reservations about this code. First, I'm completely unsure of how to turn multi_user back on. Second, I don't know where the program stores its backups. Third, this SQL is a bit above my head - I'm relatively new to the language, honestly, so I'm not sure how this will affect things.
Anyone have any answers to my troubles?

I might suggest instead of overwriting the existing database from the backup, that you instead recover the backup with a different database name... this way you can have the current and previous databases side-by-side.
Then, you can simply write an update statement to recover the data from just that one specific table instead of resetting the whole database.
EDIT: The specifics would depend on your environment, but the restore would look something like this:
restore database PRODUCT_OLD
from disk='C:\PRODUCT.bak'
with
move 'PRODUCT_Data' to 'C:\PRODUCT_OLD_Data.MDF',
move 'PRODUCT_Log' to 'C:\PRODUCT_OLD_Log.LDF'
And then the update statement would also be based on your specific table...

right on the database click tasks->takeoffline , when its succeed do the same thing but put it Bring Online
then try to restore your database

Set the database to single user is correct. When you are complete with your restoration you'll execute this
alter database YourDb
set multi_user
As for where your .bak file resides, you'll have to find it prior to restoring.

Scary.
Ok, some things to check:
Make sure you are the only person connected to the server.
Make sure no other applications, web servers, app servers, etc. hold connections to your DB.
Make sure your SQL manager has no open windows to tables or other objects in your database.
THEN you should be able to do the restore w/o single user stuff.

Go to the activity Monitor and see if users are still logged in then kill the process for that user using the respective db.
Then go ahead restore the backup

Related

How to restore and existing backup from an existing database to a new one without affecting the original?

I've searched extensively for the answer to this question and could not find a good answer. I've looked into several restore DB articles and a few rollbacks too but still no success.
My situation is: I have a very large database in which I did execute a wrong update query for a single column of a single table, and I have a full backup of this database until yesterday (which is more than enough to correct the problem). But the other tables of this same DB were updated in the meantime, and I require them to keep their current values.
so after all the reading my plan was : Restore the full backup to a new location then get the values of the column I need and input those in the current database.
My problem is: I'm not being able to restore this full backup without affecting the production DB. When I try to restore it, the sql studio says the mdf file can't be overwritten (which is good because I'll be using the table further), then i saw some articles telling me to use the MOVE query. But if I do use it the mdf files from the original/production table will be relocated thus affecting the table right ?
I also saw a few articles telling me to roll it back if I have transaction logs backups. I wasn't actually able to tell if I do have those, nor what are those. even after googling it out
Any thoughts on how I should proceed ?
sorry if it is a newbie question, but I'm not originally a programmer yet I have been doing this for work and I really need it done fast ! So any help would be strongly appreciated
I'm using SQL Server Standard 2005 with SQL Server Mangmt Studio 2008.
Restore The backup With Different Name Like DB_Temp on any location
Copy the Table From Running DB using Select INTO.......
Import records from newly restored DB (DB_Temp) Table to Running DB
Delete the Database DB_Temp
Check the changes between recently copied and original table
Update records accordingly
Thanks

How to update my local SQL Server database with the latest backup?

I'm using SQL Server 2012 in a local environment. In fact, it is running on my Windows 7 machine. My problem is as follows: I receive a daily backup of my SQL database. Right now, I'm just restoring the whole database on a daily basis by deleting the existing one. This restore task takes quite some time to complete. My understanding of the restore process is that it overwrites the previous database with the new backup.
Is there a way for SQL Server 2012 to just modify the existing database with any changes that have occured in the new backup? I mean, something like comparing the previous database with the updated one and making the necessary changes where needed.
Yes, instead of a full backup you ill need a differential backup. Restore it to move to a "point in time" state of original database.
Make a basic research about full/differential and log backups (too many info for a short answer)
I don't believe so. You can do things with database replication, but that's probably not appropriate.
If you did have something to just pull out changes it might not be faster than a restore anyway. Are you a C# or similar dev? If so, I'd be tempted to write a service which monitored the location of the backup and start the restore programatically when it arrives; might save some time.
If your question is "Can I merge changes from an external DB to my current DB without having to restore the whole DB?" then the answer is "Yes, but not easily." You can set up log shipping, but that's fairly complicated to do automatically. It's also fairly complicated to do manually, but for different reasons: there's no "Microsoft" way to do it. You have to figure out manual log shipping largely on your own.
You could consider copying the tables manually via a Linked Server. If you're only updating a small number of tables this might work just fine, and you could save yourself some trouble. A linked server on your workstation, a few MERGE statements saved to a .sql file, and you could update the important tabled in the DB as you need to.
You can avoid having to run the full backup on the remote server by using differential backups, but it's not particularly pleasant.
My assumption is that currently you're getting a full backup created with the COPY_ONLY option. This allows you to create an out-of-band backup copy that doesn't interfere with existing backups.
To do what you actually want, you'd have to do this: on the server you set up backup to do a full backup on day 1, and then do differential backups on days 2-X. Now, on your local system, you retain the full backup of the DB you created on day 1. You then have all differential backups since day 1. You restore the day 1 full DB, and then restore each subsequent differential in the correct order.
However, differential backups require the backup chain to be intact. You can't use COPY_ONLY with a differential backup. That means if you're also using backup to actually backup the database, you're going to either use these same backups for your data backups, or you'll need to have your data backups using COPY_ONLY, both of which seem philosophically wrong. Your dev database copies shouldn't be driving your prod backup procedures.
So, you can do it, but:
You still have to do a full DB restore.
You have considerably more work to do to restore the DB.
You might break your existing backup procedures of the original DB.

Database Filegroups - Only restore 1 filegroup on new server

Is there a way to backup certain tables in a SQL Database? I know I can move certain tables into different filegroups and preform a backup on these filegroup. The only issue with this is I believe you need a backup of all the filegroups and transaction logs to restore the database on a different server.
The reason why I need to restore the backup on a different server is these are backups of customers database. For example we may have a remote customer and need to get a copy of they 4GB database. 90% of this space is taken up by two tables, we don’t need these tables as they only store images. Currently we have to take a copy of the database and upload it to a FTP site…With larger databases this can take a lot of the time and we need to reduce the database size.
The other way I can think of doing this would be to take a full backup of the DB and restore it on the clients SQL server. Then connect to the new temp DB and drop the two tables. Once this is done we could take a backup of the DB. The only issue with this solution is that it could use a lot of system restores at the time of running the query so its less than ideal.
So my idea was to use two filegroups. The primary filegroup would host all of the tables except the two tables which would be in the second filegroup. Then when we need a copy of the database we just take a backup of the primary filegroup.
I have done some testing but have been unable to get it working. Any suggestions? Thanks
Basically your approach using 2 filegroups seems reasonable.
I suppose you're working with SQL Server on both ends, but you should clarify for each which whether that is truly the case as well as which editions (enterprise, standard, express etc.), and which releases 2000, 2005, 2008, (2012 ? ).
Table backup in SQL Server is here a dead horse that still gets a good whippin' now and again. Basically, that's not a feature in the built-in backup feature-set. As you rightly point out, the partial backup feature can be used as a workaround. Also, if you just want to transfer a snapshot from a subset of tables to another server, using ftp you might try working with the bcp utility as suggested by one of the answers in the above linked post, or the export/import data wizards. To round out the list of table backup solutions and workarounds for SQL Server, there is this (and possibly other ? ) third party software that claims to allow individual recovery of table objects, but unfortunately doesn't seem to offer individual object backup, "Object Level Recovery Native" by Red Gate". (I have no affiliation or experience using this particular tool).
As per your more specific concern about restore from partial database backups :
I believe you need a backup of all the filegroups and transaction logs
to restore the database on a different server
1) You might have some difficulties your first time trying to get it to work, but you can perform restores from partial backups as far back as SQL Server 2000, (as a reference see here
2) From 2005 and onward you have the option of partially restoring today, and if you need to you can later restore the remainder of your database. You don't need to include all filegroups-you always include the primary filegroup and if your database is simple recovery mode you need to add all read-write filegroups.
3) You need to apply log backups only if your db is in bulk or full recovery mode and you are restoring changes to a readonly filegroup that since last restore has become read-write. Since you are expecting changes to these tables you will likely not be concerned about read only filegroups, and so not concerned about shipping and applying log backups
You might also investigate some time whether any of the other SQL Server features, merge replication, or those mentioned above (bcp, import/export wizards) might provide a solution that is more simple or more adequately meets your needs.

roll back SQL query executed by mistake

I think the question says it all,
the following update query has been executed - by mistake - in SQL Server management studio
update kms_students set student_campus='4' where student_campus='KL'
The effected rows are more than 1000, and i can't identify it since that table is already have the student_campus='4' for many previous rows.
Is it possible to roll back?
I believe ApexSQL should do the trick.
ApexSQL works by analyzing the physical transaction log which basically has all the necessary info to restore specific transactions and data, but MS doesn't provide an out-of-box tool to manage it, other than restoring a backup and then manually restoring the transaction log up to a particular date using RESTORE LOGS
Backup. Most Hosting companies keep one, try calling everyone asap.
Your own backups. Even if they're old they will be helpful.
Keep lots of Backups and NEVER try out queries on production environment. NEVER.(Bet you learned that, right?)
To make it a bit easier, you can try putting the backup DB online and execute some PHP/Python/whatever so as to compare each record from the Backup and change the current database fom '4' to 'KL' where needed.
May not be perfect, but can help you avoid a few days of work.

How to refresh a test instance of SQL server with production data without using full backups

I have two MS SQL 2005 servers, one for production and one for test and both have a Recovery Model of Full. I restore a backup of the production database to the test server and then have users make changes.
I want to be able to:
Roll back all the changes made to the test SQL server
Apply all the transactions that have occurred on the production SQL server since the test server was originally restored so that the two servers have the same data
I do not want to do a full database restore from backup file as this takes far too long with our +200GB database especially when all the changed data is less than 1GB.
EDIT
Based on the suggestions below I have tried restoring a database with NoRecovery but you cannot create a snapshot of a database that is in that state.
I have also tried restoring it to Standby Read only mode which works and I can take a snapshot of the database then and still apply transaction logs to the original db but I cannot make the database writable again as long as there are snapshots against it.
Running:
restore database TestDB with recovery
Results in the following error:
Msg 5094, Level 16, State 2, Line 1 The operation cannot be performed on a database with database snapshots or active DBCC replicas
First off, once you've restored the backup and set the database to "recovered", that's it -- you will never be able to apply another transaction log backup to it.
However, there are database snapshots. I've never used them, but I believe you could use them for this purpose. I think you need to restore the database, leave it in "not restored" mode -- definitly not standby -- and then generate snapshots based on that. (Or was that mirroring? I read about this stuff years ago, but never had reason to use it.)
Then when you want to update the database, you drop the snapshot, restore the "next" set of transaction log backups, and create a fresh snapshot.
However, I don't think this would work very well. Above and beyond the management and maintenance overhead of doing this, if the testers/developers do a lot of modifications, your database snapshot could get very big, even bigger than the original database -- and that's hard drive space used in addition to the "original" database. For infrequently modified databases this could work, but for large OLTP systems, I have serious doubts.
So what you really want is a copy of Production to be made in Test. First, you must have a current backup of production somewhere??. Usually on a database this size full backups are made Sunday nights and then differential backups are made each night during the week.
Take the Sunday backup copy and restore it as a different database name on your server, say TestRestore. You should be able to kick this off at 5:00 pm and it should take about 10 hours. If it takes a lot longer see Optimizing Backup and Restore Performance in SQL Server.
When you get in in the morning restore the last differential backup from the previous night, this shouldn't take long at all.
Then kick the users off the Test database and rename Test to TestOld (someone will need something), then rename your TestRestore database to be the Test database. See How to rename a SQL Server Database.
The long range solution is to do log shipping from Production to TestRestore. The at a moments notice you can rename things and have a fresh Test database.
For the rollback, the easiest way is probably using a virtual machine and not saving changes when you close it.
For copying changes across from the production to the test, could you restore the differential backups or transaction log backups from production to the test db?
After having tried all of the suggestions offered here I have not found any means of accomplishing what I outlined in the question through SQL. If someone can find a way and post it or has another suggestion I would be happy to try something else but at this point there appears to be no way to accomplish this.
Storage vendors (as netapp) provide the ability to have writeable snapshots.
It gives you the ability to create a snapshot within seconds on the production, do your tests, and drop/recreate the snapshot.
It's a long term solution, but... It works
On Server1, a job exists that compresses the latest full backup
On Server2, there's a job that performs the following steps:
Copies the compressed file to a local drive
Decompresses the file to make the full backup available
Kills all sessions to the database that is about to be restored
Restores the database
Sets the recovery model to Simple
Grants db_owner privileges to the developers
Ref:http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/archive/2009/02/25/How-to-refresh-a-SQL-Server-database-automatically.aspx