Disaster recovery - SQL EXPRESS 2005

Question

The tennis club I play at had their server become unbootable. I previously made a bit for bit copy of the hard drive 3 months ago and was able to use that drive to get the PC back up. The unbootable drive is still able to be seen by the OS as a slave drive. How might I get the SQL Express database from the slave drive to work?  It has the most current data on it. The master is 3 months old data. As a novice, I tried copying the Microsoft SQL Server directory over, but the Instance won't start. Unfortunately, they don't do backups at all.

SQL Server 9.0.4035 - SERVER\Owner
Microsoft XP Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 2

If I do try to use the Directory from the unbootable drive, the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) will not start. I get this error:

Cannot connet to SERVER\SQLEXPRESS - Error 40 and Error 2

Thank you for any and all assistance

Eric

Answer 1

Hello

1.  Install SQL Server Express onto the working hard disk 
2.  Copy the mdf and ldf file of the database onto the working hard disk
3.  In Management Studio connect to your new instance
4.  Right click the Databases folder and select Attach
5.  Select the file(s) from the working hard disk then click OK

Hope this helps


Rob