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Rebuild system databases in sql server 2008

In this article I will explain how to rebuild system databases. This topic contains following sections

   1. Software Requirement.

   2. Prerequisite knowledge.

   3. What does rebuild do?

   4. Scenarios of rebuilding database

   5. Syntax

   6. Log in Summary.txt file.

Software Requirement

Before you start reading this tutorial you should make sure that SQL server 2008 is installed on your machine.

Prerequisite knowledge

Before you go ahead, it is required that you should know

1. What are system databases?

2. What is the purpose of system databases?

What does rebuild do?

Rebuild sets the system databases to the default state. For example if you have added 3 databases then after rebuild all three databases gets deleted. So it is a good practice to take back up before rebuilding system databases.

Scenarios of rebuilding database

In the real time scenarios, system databases are rebuilt when they got corrupted.

Syntax

   1. Open command prompt.

   2. Go to the path - C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap\SQLServer2008R2 (because I am using SQLServer2008R2 instance of database. If you are using SQLServer instance then go to the path C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap)

   3. Execute following query

setup.exe /QUIET /ACTION=REBUILDDATABASE /INSTANCENAME=sqlexpress2k8r2 /SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS= my_domain\admin_user_name /SAPWD=login_password

      i) /QUIET means that setup is run without any user interface.

      ii) /ACTION=REBUILDDATABASE means system databases are recreated.

      iii) /INSTANCENAME=sqlexpress2k8r2 – This is the instance name of database.

      iv) SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS=my_domain\admin_user_name - Here my_domain is the domain name and admin_user_name is the user name having admin rights in the system.

      v) /SAPWD=login_password - This is the login password of user having admin rights (or the admin who executes this command).

Log in Summary.txt file

Summary.txt is the log file which stored at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap\Log location. If the rebuild executes successfully the log is stored in this file in this way

Overall summary:

Final result: Passed

Exit code (Decimal): 0

Exit message: Passed

Start time: 2012-06-29 17:20:19

End time: 2012-06-29 17:23:37

Requested action: RebuildDatabase

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Tuesday, July 03, 2012

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