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How to Overcome Server Error 3219 of MS SQL

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Introduction

While working with MS SQL Servers, an admin needs to restore the SQL Server database to a different location. This can be done by using one of the many options provided by SQL Server Management studio. With MS SQL Server, you can either restore files or file groups using the "Restore Files and Filegroups" option of MS SQL, or you can restore the entire database. However, trying to restore the database using the "Restore Files and Filegroups" option, can lead to an improper restore of the database. As a result, you might get an SQL Server error 3219. This error usually occurs when the "Restore Files and Filegroups" option is used instead of the restore database command. One can use the correct database restore command while performing the backup process to overcome this error.

The "Restore Files and Filegroups" option allows you to restore files that have been damaged or corrupt because of failure. You can restore any specific files or group of files, from database backups or file and file group backups. With this option, you can backup necessary transaction log backups. This is the reason why the backing transaction log is recommended. The SQL Server error 3219 is not specific to any version of the SQL Server. For example, if you are working with SQL Server 2005 and try to restore the SQL Server 2000 database backup file using the “Restore Files and Filegroups” option, you will get error 3219. This restoring option is a part of the SQL Server Management studio and results in the following error message.

“the file or filegroup "xxdb_log" cannot be selected for this operation. restore database is terminating abnormally.”

Here XXDB is the name of the database backup file.

However, the above issue can be overcome by creating a new database with either the restore database or restore database with move option. There are few points, which need to be remembered, while backing up and restoring files and filegroups.

  • If your database is using the full recovery model, then only you can back up individual files and filegroups. Once the restore is complete, then you must apply log backups, which is not the case with database using a simple model.
  • This option does not back up any portion of the transaction log.
  • If you are using a full database backup, you can restore individual file or filegroup backups.
  • You must back up the transaction log, just before restoring an individual file or file group. An unbroken log backup’s chain is required from the time the file or filegroup backup was made until they are restored.
  • All the transaction logs must be restored after the backup from the time the file was backed up till you restored it. This ensures that the restored files are synchronized with the rest of the database with the help of transaction logs.

On the other hand, restoring a database means to restore the master database, which includes all files and folders. You need to restart the SQL Server service, and be in a single user-mode. The system gives you an option to stop, cancel, or restart the restoration process at any time.

In order to restore the SQL Server database, you need to follow the below mentioned steps.

  1. Identify the database to be restored.
  2. Right-click on the database and choose the ‘Restore database” option.
  3. Choose “From Device”.
  4. Choose “Read backup set information”.
  5. Click “Add”. This would allow you to select the backup file to be used.
  6. Press “OK”.
  7. Press “OK” again. This would start the backup process.

The above-mentioned steps allow a complete data backup and eliminate the error 3219.

However, the best possible way to get rid of any such errors is to make use of a professional MSSQL backup restore software.