How to Restore the Master Database in SQL Server?

summary: This blog will explain when a Master database gets corrupted and how to identify the corruption. Besides, we will also provide the manual and a professional SQL Database Recovery Tool to restore the Master database in SQL Server. Read to Resolve.

In SQL Server, there is a paramount role of the master database. A Master database keeps the primary configuration details of the SQL Server. The core information stored in the master database is stored or recorded in MDF files. Whereas; the parallel transaction logs in LDF files. To summarize this, we can say that the information or other details of the SQL Server database are kept or saved in the Master database. Sometimes, due to sudden changes in the master database, the user faces various issues while working on SQL Server. This is why users are required to restore the master database in SQL Server.

How to Find Whether a Master Database is Corrupt or Not?

As a system administrator, it is a must to know the symptoms that indicate the damage or corruption in your master database. A few of them are mentioned below.

• Input/Output errors of Segmentation Faults
• Unable to start SQL Server
• Report generation by Database Consistency Checker Utility

The above are the situations where the master database seems to be corrupt or missing. An SQL Server Power surge is one such situation that helps to reboot the SQL server and after the rebooting process, the SQL server may not start in this scenario.

What to Do to Restore Master Database in SQL Server?

Now, let’s move to the techniques that help to rebuild, recover, and restore the master database of your SQL Server. Whereas, it is mandatory to have a plan to deal with the issues of corruption and practice a comprehensive & methodical approach to recover and restore the master database in SQL Server.

Note: However, it is strongly recommended the users have a full backup of the master database while rebuilding or restoring the master database of SQL Server.

Pre-Rebuild Tasks

When one wants to rebuild the master, msdb, model, and the tempdb system database, then these all databases are dropped from the SQL Server and recreated at their original location. Furthermore, if a user mentions a new collation in the rebuilt process, then the database is created with the collation setting.

• First of all, select all the server-side configuration values.
• After that, record the hotfixes attached to the MS SQL Server. (You have to apply all these hotfixes after restoring the database)
• Here, keep all the record locations of data and log files of the system database. The pre-rebuilding task will help to install all the system databases to their specific location.
• Now, check the latest backup of master, msdb, and model databases.
• After that, make sure that you have assigned the permissions to rebuild the databases. (Only Sysadmin server group members can rebuild the database)
• At last, the copies of the master, msdb, model database, and log templates are required to run the rebuild process. You can find the copies on the local server at the default location i.e.-C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL13.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Binn\Templates

Post-Rebuild Tasks

• After the completion of rebuilding the master database, you need to follow the below-mentioned tasks.
• Firstly, restore the recent full backups,
• After that, if the SQL Server instantly belongs to the replication distribution, then one must restore the replication database.
• Now, move the system database to their respective location where earlier they are saved.
• Here, check the values of server-side configuration matching the present and previous values.

Rebuild

Restoring the corrupt master database is tricky and you need to be very careful while recovering, as all the other databases are connected in the instance. To do this, one can opt for using the Rebuild Wizard utility (Rebuildm.exe) that is located on the default users directory:-\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\80\Tools\BINN

For starting the Rebuild Wizard, just double-click on the program and you will find the interface of Rebuild Wizard.

• In the rebuild wizard, provide or enter the desired collation setting along with the location of files from your database server. Furthermore, you have to provide the x86 directory from the SQL CF and also direct it to the local copy of your hard drive to continue the faster and more fortunate recovery.
• After verifying the provided collation settings, click on the Rebuild button to allow the utility to build a new master database for your server.
• Here you have created a brand new master database, after that you can start the SQL Server in a single-user mode. To do this, simply run this command from your CMD (Command Prompt) sqlservr.exe –c -m
• After doing all these tricks, Open the SQL Server Configuration Manager and go to the Startup Parameter tab, and enter -m in the parameter text field. At last, tap the Apply button too. Now, restart the SQL Server.

Here, type the following command or syntax to rebuild the master database in MS SQL Server 2005.

Start /wait setup.exe /qn INSTANCENAME=<InstanceName> REINSTALL=SQL_Engine REBUILDDATABASE=1 sapwd=< NewStrongPassword>

The above-mentioned procedures help you in rebuilding the corrupt databases including msdb, model, and the master database.

Restore

If you wish to restore the master database files, then you must have the latest or updated backup of the master.ldf and master.mdf files. After that, start the SQL Server in a single mode and follow the below-mentioned procedures with full precision.

1. Launch the SQL Server Configuration Manager and after that select SQL Server 2005 Services.
2. Now, go to the SQL Server instance, perform a right-click operation, and select the Properties option.
3. From the properties section, select the Advanced tab. Now, visit the Startup Parameters box, and then add (-m) prefix to the already existing or available parameters.

Note: Make sure that the prefix is then removed when your desired or selected tasks get completed. More on, connect your SQL Server by running the following commands to restore the master database.

RESTORE DATABASE master FROM DISK = ‘C:\BackupLocation\master.bak’ WITH REPLACE;GO

Alternate Solution to Restore the Master Database in SQL Server

Don’t worry! We are always aiming to help the users if one fails to do the manual tricks. Here, the best alternative to restore the master database in SQL Server is SQL Database Recovery. With the help of this software, one can easily repair and restore the corrupt database. The software supports recovering all the data such as Triggers, Rules, Functions, Tables, Programmability, and other functions from the corrupt SQL database.

Compete Steps to Recover and Restore the Master Database

1. Download and Install SQL Database Recovery.
2. Click the Open button and select the corrupted database file .mdf.
3. After that, select the recovery mode and other options in the next step.
4. Now, the software will scan the selected corrupt MDF file and display the file data in a tree structure.
5. Here, click on the Save button and also choose the saving criteria.
6. At last, tap Ok to save the recovered data from the MDF file.

Conclusion

SQL Server database security is one of the main concerns for its administrator. While there are times when one observes the symptoms of corruption and starts seeking an instant solution to get out of the observed issues. For this, one can try the rebuild and restore SQL Server tricks to do manually. Besides, if it fails to fix with manual tricks then they can opt for the professional and most trusted third-party application SQL Database Recovery at your service.

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