I need to reproduce a bug, and a guy from the other team has sent me a .mdf and .ldf files from his sql server 2005 instance. When I attach the database, all I get is empty tables, even though file is 2 mb large. The db contains 2 tables that have, among other thing, a varbinary(max) field. At the same time another database, which has no varbinaries in tables, is attached ok and data are in place. What could be possible reason why data became inaccessible?
Perhaps he sent you a database with empty tables.
at 2MB, the file is probably legitimately empty. There is no blob field exclusions that I know of with SQL backups.
Make sure the attached files have the correct security for SQL Server to access them and also that you have the authority to read the attached DB within SQL Server itself.
Related
I am trying to download my SQL Server database (that is more than 40 GB) from production server to my local machine. I need only schema & some of data as downloading 40 GB backup file & restoring is really tough task for me.
I have tried to use generate scripts to obtain schema, this was successful. But for getting data for (suppose approx. first 500 rows) of all tables, I am not sure how I should approach that.
Please let me know is there any other way to achieve this?
I am using Microsoft's SQL Server Version 12.0.xxx.
Thanks
SQL Server Management Studio provides a wizard which enables you to generate scripts not only for metadata (or schema) but also the scripts for data within database.
Please refer to Script Data in SQL Server
But if your database backup size is very big, the script file will be very huge.
Actually this wizard does not provide a parameter to script only for first 500 rows of each table.
Besides all, if you have foreign keys and constraints on your table definitions, you might not be enough to get only the first 500 rows. You need every referenced lookup data in your database in order to insert data into your transactional tables, or you need the parent for the child data.
This forces you to create a more smart script for data extraction.
I have Server_A with DB_A and Server_B with DB_B, both of these are remote servers that I have no root access to.
Server_A is SQL 2012 and DB_A is set in Compatibility level 2008
Server_B is SQL 2008 and DB_B is set in Compatibility level 2008, of course.
I need to copy the data, including relationships and keys from DB_A to DB_B. How can this be done?
Using the import or export wizard I've only been able to move the data and all the relationships are list. Please give a guy a hand and teach him something!
One way is to right-click on the source database in SSMS and select Tasks > Generate Scripts. This will show a wizard which when completed will produce a text file with all the SQL statements needed to replicate the database on a new system.
The neat thing about the wizard is that it gives you a set options so that you can decide what is in the final output. So you get to
pick if you just want the data or the table structures or both.
The final result might not be a good option for large databases but it is very portable.
Actually you can back up to a .bak file.
Where you want to restore it is totally up to you.
If it doesn't work for some reason (it should work fine) you can always try to copy your database like so.
These two steps will copy the database intierly. Including the relationships and keys.
This is the only alternative I've found for your problem since you don't have sysadmin rights.
I have two databases, one on a remote server the other local. (SQL Server 2008)
The database on my local server has the entire structure setup but no data. I would like to copy the data from the remote server to my server and I am wondering the best method in which to do this.
The main issue I am experiencing is the user that I have to the remote database has limited permissions. I cannot read the stored procedures, user defined functions so when I use Import/Export wizard I do not get the schema etc. So a regular dump/restore is not working for me as it restores the tables without the Primary Keys/Foreign Keys and the stored procedures.
I'd like to do this,
INSERT INTO localtable SELECT * FROM remotedb.table
I was having issues because of the IDENTITY fields and I had to explicitly name all of the columns. Also I am not sure if SQL Server Management Studio allows you to use two different databases, remote and local, so I was looking for any advice.
I have also tried applications like SQL FTP and Backup and it fails because it runs out of memory (I have 16GB of memory on the machine and the DB is like 4GB). I also can use the SQL Server import/export wizard but then I don't get the schema information. I also tried SQL Compare from Red Gate and it runs into issues with the permissions. Unfortunately I do not have the time to request and gain access to a new user so I was hoping someone had a creative idea.
You can definitely use SQL Server Backups for this. It will not run out of memory. If it does please tell us the message (because likely you are misinterpreting it). This is the fastest possible and the most complete solution.
You can tell the export wizard to also script the schema. It is hidden under "advanced" somewhere (terrible UI). But the script will be extremely big and I know of no way to execute it.
You can drop all schema objects except PKs in the target database. Then you can use remote queries to copy all the data over. You will not get any problems with foreign keys and identity columns if you drop the beforehand. After you are done you can recreate all those objects. It is probably best if you use a transaction for all of this because that way you get consistent source data from a point-in-time.
we have received a single dump (.dmp) file created for multiple databases. Could someone please tell me
how do you create this single file ? and
more importantly how do I restore these databases to a new sql server instance
Can't check at the moment as not at my DB server, however if it's what I think it is, try right clicking on your SERVER name in SQL Management studio, navigate to tasks, and backup/restore databases.
This may also be an option on individual tables, containing multiple tables.
Is there a way to replicate only schema (and all schema objects) without data between two SQL server instances?
For copying, rather than replicating, the simplest way would be to "Create scripts" for the database and run them on target server. This will create a new blank database on the new server.
Replicaton in SQL server implies that as you make changes to one schema they are automatically replicated on the other server. This can be done to some extent with SQL server replication, you just prevent he data being transferred but setting a criteria. I don't see how this would be of much use though.
I found this researching something else so I don't know if it is still an issue for you or not but there is an object in SSIS called Transfer SQL Server Objects. I haven't used it before but it has an option to copy data or not and you can select copy all objects or just specific types of objects, permissions etc.