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How to: Restore a Database Backup (Transact-SQL)

This topic explains how to restore a full database backup.

Important

The system administrator restoring the full database backup must be the only person currently using the database to be restored.

Prerequisites and Recommendations

  • To restore a database that is encrypted, you must have access to the certificate or asymmetric key that was used to encrypt the database. Without the certificate or asymmetric key, the database cannot be restored. As a result, the certificate that is used to encrypt the database encryption key must be retained as long as the backup is needed. For more information, see SQL Server Certificates and Asymmetric Keys.

  • For security purposes, we recommend that you do not attach or restore databases from unknown or untrusted sources. Such databases could contain malicious code that might execute unintended Transact-SQL code or cause errors by modifying the schema or the physical database structure. Before you use a database from an unknown or untrusted source, run DBCC CHECKDB on the database on a nonproduction server and also examine the code, such as stored procedures or other user-defined code, in the database.

Database Compatibility Level After Upgrade

The compatibility levels of the tempdb, model, msdb and Resource databases are set to 100 after upgrade. The master system database retains the compatibility level it had before upgrade, unless that level was less than 80. If the compatibility level of master was less than 80 before upgrade, it is set to 80 after upgrade.

If the compatibility level of a user database was 80 or 90 before upgrade, it remains the same after upgrade. If the compatibility level was 70 or less before upgrade, in the upgraded database, the compatibility level is set to 80, which is the lowest supported compatibility level in SQL Server 2008.

Note

New user databases will inherit the compatibility level of the model database.

Procedures

To restore a full database backup

  1. Execute the RESTORE DATABASE statement to restore the full database backup, specifying:

    • The name of the database to restore.

    • The backup device from where the full database backup is restored.

    • The NORECOVERY clause if you have a transaction log or differential database backup to apply after restoring the full database backup.

    Important

    To restore a database that is encrypted, you must have access to the certificate or asymmetric key that was used to encrypt the database. Without the certificate or asymmetric key, the database cannot be restored. As a result, the certificate that is used to encrypt the database encryption key must be retained as long as the backup is needed. For more information, see SQL Server Certificates and Asymmetric Keys.

  2. Optionally, specify:

    • The FILE clause to identify the backup set on the backup device to restore.

Note

After you restore a SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2000 database to SQL Server 2008, the database becomes available immediately and is then automatically upgraded. If the database has full-text indexes, the upgrade process either imports, resets, or rebuilds them, depending on the setting of the upgrade_option server property. If the upgrade option is set to import (upgrade_option = 2) or rebuild (upgrade_option = 0), the full-text indexes will be unavailable during the upgrade. Depending the amount of data being indexed, importing can take several hours, and rebuilding can take up to ten times longer. Note also that when the upgrade option is set to import, the associated full-text indexes are rebuilt if a full-text catalog is not available. To change the setting of the upgrade_option server property, use sp_fulltext_service.

Example

Description

This example restores the AdventureWorks full database backup from tape.

Code

USE master
GO
RESTORE DATABASE AdventureWorks
   FROM TAPE = '\\.\Tape0'
GO