1 Topic by Janet Simkin

  • Janet Simkin
  • Janet Simkin
  • Veteran
  • Offline
  • From: Northumberland
  • Registered: 10-05-2006
  • Posts: 262

Topic: Moving database to new PC

Our Recorder6 database (3.7GB) is currently on a W7 laptop, in SQLServerExpress 2005. I need to move it onto a new laptop running W8.1 and SQLServerExpress 2008. I am following the (very helpful) instructions on installing to W8.1, but that only gets me to having an empty database on the new machine. So I still have a few questions:

Presumably I need to get the old and new systems updated to the same software and dictionary levels before doing anything. We are currently on 6.19 with the latest dictionary.

Do I need to upgrade the old installation to 2008 before attempting to copy the database across?

What is the best way to attach the old database to the new installation, by restoring a backup? Or attaching NBNData_Data.mdf?

This is quite traumatic, so any other advice will be appreciated as well!

Janet

Janet Simkin
British Lichen Society

Janet Simkin's Website

2 Reply by RobLarge

  • RobLarge
  • RobLarge
  • Veteran
  • Offline
  • From: Wiltshire
  • Registered: 15-07-2008
  • Posts: 812

Re: Moving database to new PC

The operating system and SQL versions shouldn't make any difference, so long as your R6 and dictionaries are at the same version. Restoring from a backup should be easiest.

Rob Large
Wildlife Sites Officer
Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre

RobLarge's Website

3 Reply by MikeWeideli

  • MikeWeideli
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • From: Littlefield Consultancy
  • Registered: 05-07-2006
  • Posts: 2,645

Re: Moving database to new PC

You can restore the backup from your old system into the 6.17 version on the new machine, but then you must run the R6 upgrade to bring it up to latest R6 version. Assuming you are currently on 6.22 then there will be nothing else to do.

Mike Weideli

MikeWeideli's Website

4 Reply by Janet Simkin

  • Janet Simkin
  • Janet Simkin
  • Veteran
  • Offline
  • From: Northumberland
  • Registered: 10-05-2006
  • Posts: 262

Re: Moving database to new PC

Mike and Rob, thanks for the advice.

It all went quite smoothly, and the database was moved and updated to the latest versions of software and dictionary, but there was a problem with taking a backup once all that had been done. Although it was the backup file that had just been restored, taking a new backup failed with "unknown backup error: 3268". Doing the same thing through SQLServer MSE gave more information and explained that the backup file couldn't be used because it was originally formatted with sector size 512 and is now on a device with sector size 4096. Deleting the backup file to force Recorder to create a new one solved the problem.

Janet

Janet Simkin
British Lichen Society

Janet Simkin's Website