sql server 2005 attach database broken

Question

Hello all,

I need to reproduce a bug, and a guy from the other team has sent me a .mdf and .ldf files from his sql server 2005 instance. When I attach the database, all I get is empty tables, even though file is 2 mb large. The db contains 2 tables that have, among other thing, a varbinary(max) field. At the same time another database, which has no varbinaries in tables, is attached ok and data are in place. What could be possible reason why data became inaccessible?

Answer 1

at 2MB, the file is probably legitimately empty. There is no blob field exclusions that I know of with SQL backups.

Answer 2

Perhaps he sent you a database with empty tables.

Answer 3

Make sure the attached files have the correct security for SQL Server to access them and also that you have the authority to read the attached DB within SQL Server itself.