Is there a way to bulk insert into two tables with FK from one to the other?

Question

I'll give a pseudocode example of my current method and if anyone knows of a method that doesn't work one row at a time, I'd be quite appreciative. I'm using MS SQLServer 2008

define cursor for the data to be inserted (about 3 million records)

loop

(

insert record into table 1

use scope_identity() to get key

insert record into table 2 that references table 1

)

I'd much rather do some sort of insert into both tables simultaneously because a cursor and loop are slow.

Before anyone rants about why I'm inserting something into two separate tables that has a 1 to 1 relationship, it's because the first table cannot be modified and I need the information in the second (temporary) table for reference for data conversion operations later on. No, I cannot add a temporary column to hold the reference data on to the table that cannot be modified because it cannot be modified. This is a live system and I don't have permissions to alter the table.

Thanks!

Additional Info:

Ex

Source:

1 a big  monkey
2 a tall elephant
3 a big  giraffe
4 a tiny cow
5 a tall cow

Dest:

Table 1       Table 2
monkey        1 big
elephant      2 tall
giraffe       3 big
cow           4 tiny
cow           5 cow

Answer 1

With that much data, the best option might be to isolate updates on the system, allow identity insert and prepoulate the keys before inserting.

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Or, can you just do the first insert, then modify the insert for the second (from a temp table) to join on to the original data and find the key.