BCP BLOB exporting corrupted file - sql-server

Question

I have looked thoroughly for an answer regarding BCP and extracting a BLOB from my SQL server database. I have followed the various steps found in other threads and I keep coming up with the same file corrupted error.
My database has a column with data type IMAGE in BLOB format. On the users end they can enter photos, pdfs, anything to this field and the server converts them to extremely long BLOBs. My task is to extract these so we can replace them with file name extensions, putting less stress on the database.
My current command is:
bcp "select notes_activex from myDatabase where NCR_NO = '1361'" queryout "C:\BCPtest\testOutput" -S -U -P -f C:\BCPtest\testOutput.fmt
My format file is correct for an image file as per some of the other files posted. I have tried casting the image file first to a varbinary(max) and that still doesnt solve my solution. No matter what I try I can get the BLOB to export but it is a corrupted file.
Added my format file:
11.0
1
1 SQLIMAGE 0 0 "" 1 notes_activex ""

Answer 1

As far as binary data, BCP is intended for extracting data so that it can be later inserted into another SQL Server. It's not saved in a format that's compatible with a binary data file. You'll need to extract the data with a program or script, basically, that's capable of converting the data to bytes.
I've done this in the past with a PowerShell script. I'd use something like the script below. I strongly recommend determining the file from the SQL query if at all possible if you're fetching more than one record at a time.
# Define the connection parameters
$SqlServer = 'MyServerName';
$SqlDatabase = 'MyDatabase';
$SqlConnectionString = 'Data Source={0};Initial Catalog={1};Integrated Security=SSPI' -f $SqlServer, $SqlDatabase;
# Define the query. Note that one field is the file name and the other is the data.
# Modify the WHERE clause to pull the records you need. I am assuming that NCR_NO is not a unique identifier.
$SqlQuery = "select SomeUniqueID AS FileName, notes_activex AS FileData from myDatabase where NCR_NO = '1361'";
# Or use a GUID for the filename
# $SqlQuery = "select NEWID() AS FileName, notes_activex AS FileData from myDatabase";
# Define the path pattern for the output files. {0} will get filled in with the filename.
$OutputFileFullNamePattern = 'C:\Path\To\Output\{0}';
# Create the Connection object and the Command object
$SqlConnection = New-Object -TypeName System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection -ArgumentList $SqlConnectionString;
$SqlCommand = $SqlConnection.CreateCommand();
$SqlCommand.CommandText = $SqlQuery;
# Open the connection
$SqlConnection.Open();
# Create the Sql Data Reader
$SqlDataReader = $SqlCommand.ExecuteReader();
while ($SqlDataReader.Read()) {
# Set in the file name
$OutputFileFullName = $OutputFileFullNamePattern -f $SqlDataReader['FileName'];
# Save the data to the file
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($OutputFileFullName,$SqlDataReader['FileData']);
}
# Close and dispose of the SQL connection
$SqlConnection.Close();
$SqlConnection.Dispose();
This uses an SqlDataReader, which loads records one at a time. This means your system won't need to load the entire table into memory, but it does mean that you'll have a shared lock on the table until it's done if you're dumping the whole table. If possible, run this query during downtime.