How to View the Content of a Backup File
- After connecting to the appropriate instance of the Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine,...
- Expand Databases, and, depending on the database, either select a user database or expand System...
- Right-click the database you want to backup, point to Tasks, and then click Back Up.
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How to restore SQL Server database from backup?
☛ How to restore SQL database from backup:
- Once a backup task is created, it will show in the Tasks tab. Find the one you want, click Advanced at the its top-right corner and choose Restore.
- Select the computer and its databases you want to restore. ...
- You can restore these databases to original location or new location. ...
How do I back up SQL Server database?
Using SQL Server Management Studio :
- In Object Explorer, connect to the desired instance of the Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine, expand the server instance.
- Expand Databases box and select a user database or select a system database.
- Right-click the database that need to backup, click on Tasks, and then click Back Up….
How do I restore database in SQL?
To restore a differential database backup
- After you connect to the appropriate instance of the Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine, in Object Explorer, click the server name to expand the server tree.
- Expand Databases. ...
- Right-click the database, point to Tasks, point to Restore, and then click Database.
How do I restore encrypted SQL database?
Using SQL Server Management Studio
- In Object Explorer, right-click the database you encrypted above, point to Tasks and select Detach.... ...
- Click OK.
- Using Windows Explorer, move or copy the database files from the source server to the same location on the destination server.

How do I view a SQL Server backup file?
To view the content of a backup tape or file Expand Databases, and, depending on the database, either select a user database or expand System Databases and select a system database. Right-click the database you want to backup, point to Tasks, and then click Back Up. The Back Up Database dialog box appears.
How do I view a .BAK file?
These backup files have names ending with the ". bak" file extension, and you use them to restore database backups through Microsoft SQL Server. by navigating to the backup utility and loading the BAK file as a restoration medium, you can open the file and restore the database.
How do I view SQL data files?
About This ArticleOpen MySQL Workbench.Double-click a model under "MySQL Connections."Click File on the top-left.Click Open SQL Script.Select your SQL file.Click Open.
How can I open a BAK file without SQL Server?
How to Open BAK File Without SQL Server? – Expert SolutionDownload SQL BAK File Recovery Tool and launch it into your Windows system.Click on Open option from the top and then click on the Browse button to add .Click on the Multiple Backup File Option and add multiple SQL .Select the .More items...•
How do I restore a SQL database from a BAK file?
Step 1: Open SSMS and connect to an instance of SQL Server. Step 2: Next, go to Object Explorer and click the Server Name to expand the Server tree. Step 3: Navigate to Databases and open the database you want to restore in SQL Server. Step 4: Right-click the Database, and then click Restore Database.
How do I unzip a .BAK file in SQL Server?
Right-click the Databases node in Object Explorer and select Restore Database.... Select Device:, and then select the ellipses (...) to locate your backup file. Select Add and navigate to where your . bak file is located.
How do I open an SQL file in Excel?
To connect Excel to a database in SQL Database, open Excel and then create a new workbook or open an existing Excel workbook. In the menu bar at the top of the page, select the Data tab, select Get Data, select From Azure, and then select From Azure SQL Database.
How extract SQL data file?
Start the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard from SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)In SQL Server Management Studio, connect to an instance of the SQL Server Database Engine.Expand Databases.Right-click a database.Point to Tasks.Click one of the following options. Import Data. Export Data.
Where are SQL database files stored?
The location of the database files created using Microsoft SQL Server: The data and transaction log files are stored on the computer hosting the Microsoft SQL Server. If the Microsoft SQL Server and the LaserFiche Server are hosted on the same computer, then the files are stored in the database folder.
How do I open a BAK file in Windows 10?
Method 2: Use of . bak File in Microsoft SQL ServerOpen SQL Server Management Studio through Microsoft SQL Server and connect to your server by choosing the server name.On the left panel right-click on Database folder and choose Restore Database.More items...•
How do I convert a BAK file to Excel?
However, if you know the BAK file was created in Microsoft Excel, you can rename the file extension to an Excel-compatible file type, such as XLS or XLSX, to be opened in Excel. If the BAK is an Excel file, renaming the file extension will convert the file to the Excel format.
Before You Begin
For information about security, see RESTORE FILELISTONLY (Transact-SQL)
Using SQL Server Management Studio
After connecting to the appropriate instance of the Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine, in Object Explorer, click the server name to expand the server tree.
How to restore a bak file in SQL Server?
To restore a .bak file in SQL Server, you need to first create a backup of your database and then you can restore it. If you have already created a full database backup then you can use below T-SQL script to restore the full database backup from a .bak file.
Can you view a backup file?
The backup file cannot be viewed directly by opening it , you need to restore it to view its database. SQL Server provides different options for creating and restoring a database from .bak file. There are two different ways that we can use to restore SQL .bak file.
Definitions
To better understand this article, the following definition of terms will help:
Scenario
We will create the desired scenario by performing a series of backup operations in this order:
SQL Server MSDB System Tables
If we want to examine the backups from database Practice2017 while on the instance where the backups were created, we can easily do that by querying the backupset and backupmediafamily system tables (see Listing 2 below).
SQL Server Restore LabelOnly
SQL Server documentation tells us that Restore LabelOnly returns "…a result set containing information about the backup media identified by the given backup device."
SQL Server Restore HeaderOnly
SQL Server documentation tells us that Restore HeaderOnly "…returns a result set containing all the backup header information for all backup sets on a particular backup device in SQL Server." In my estimation, Restore HeaderOnly and Restore FilelistOnly are the two most important statements a DBA should issue when preparing to restore a backup.
SQL Server Restore FilelistOnly
SQL Server documentation tells us that Restore FilelistOnly "… returns a result set containing a list of the database and log files contained in the backup set in SQL Server." This is particularly useful if we need to use the MOVE clause with the restore command or we need to replicate the drive structure of the source instance at the destination.
Performing the SQL Server Restore
The code in Listing 3 shows how we use this Media Set to recover the Practice2017 database on a different SQL Server instance.
Overview
The RESTORE HEADERONLY option allows you to see the backup header information for all backups for a particular backup device.
Explanation
The RESTORE HEADERONLY option can be simply issued as follows for a backup that exists on disk.
Backupfile
This table contains the row for each data or log file of the database for which we executed the backup SQL database. In the following image, we can see essential columns of this table:
backupmediafamily
In this table, we get the information about the logical and physical backup SQL database file name along with the device type in which backup was taken:
Backupset
In this table, we can get information about the successful backup for each database:
