Next, you must restore the transaction logs in the order created and in separate jobs. No log can be skipped when restoring.
For example, if you did a full backup on Monday and incremental backups each day Tuesday through Friday, you must run five separate jobs: one restoring the database from Monday’s full backup job and then four additional separate jobs restoring each transaction log in sequential order, beginning Tuesday and continuing with each log sequentially until Friday.
You do not have to follow these procedures when restoring databases backed up with full backup jobs. (Full backup jobs back up the entire database, while Incremental and Differential jobs only back up the database logs.)
Restoring Microsoft SQL Server user databases
To restore a database, begin by restoring the most recent full backup of the database, followed by all the database logs, that is, backups made with the Backup mode set to either incremental or differential.
When a database is restored, if the database does not yet exist, Data Protector Express will create the database where the database was originally located.
To restore a lost or damaged database:
1.If the transaction log of the damaged or inaccessible user database is on an undamaged device, make a backup of the transactions before proceeding. (This lets you preserve up to the minute transactions that are not included on the backup tape.)
You may use either a DUMP TRANSACTION statement on the SQL server or use a Data Protector Express Incremental backup job to back up only the transactions logs.
2.If you are restoring the database because the data in the database is no longer needed or is incorrect, skip to step 3. The following instructions are for recreating database devices and the database which had existed previously.
During the restore processes, Data Protector Express will recreate the database and all segments exactly as they existed when the backup was performed.
To do this, Data Protector Express first determines if the database exists. If the database does exist, Data Protector Express will use the database as is without any further processing or changes.
3.If the database does not exist, Data Protector Express next identifies the database devices on which the database was originally located. If the appropriate database device already exists, Data Protector Express will use that device as is without further processing.
If the database device does not exist, Data Protector Express recreates the database device at its original location and with its original size. After all the database devices are created, Data Protector Express then creates the database with all the original options at the original locations.
NOTE: If a disk drive fails and is not replaced, Data Protector Express will be unable to restore your database because it will be unable to recreate a database device.
For example, if a segment of your database resides on a database named ‘DATA’ at D:\ MSSQL\DATA\DATA.DAT, if D: is lost and not replaced, when Data Protector Express attempts to recreate the database device, it will fail, since D: no longer exists.
TIP: This method makes disaster recovery simple. The user simply create a restore job and allows Data Protector Express to recreate whatever is needed in order to successfully restore the database.
To avoid this problem, manually recreate the database device at some other valid location. It must be at least as large as the original database device since Data Protector Express will attempt to create a database segment on it the same size as the original database.
Working with Microsoft SQL Server 53
