So I was tasked to do some DR testing, by moving one of our environments to another. I was tasked with moving 1 user database called Vant, master, and msdb. I managed to accomplish it, but it wasn't easy and a little messy. I'm looking to see if you guys can help me clean my steps up a bit.
Environment backgroud.
Both environments are SQL Server 2012 Enterprise
Build: 11.0.3368
Instance Name: Default
Process
I took all 3 backups from my source server and placed it in a network location where my destination server can access.
1) I began by trying to restore master database by placing my instance in single user mode, backup restored.
2) when I removed the destination instance from single user mode, the service would not start, did this a couple of times, but no luck.
3)I also made sure the startup parameters were pointing to the right folder location
4)Then I thought, maybe it was the folder location where it restored to, that was causing the problem because they were different; so I went ahead moved master into a folder location that would match the source, i also changed the startup parameters, but the instance still wouldn't start
5)So then I checked the event logs, and noticed that SQL Server was looking for databases that were on the Source Instance, as well as some of the system databases that I hadn't moved the files to the new folder location
6)Restored the original master database from the destination server so that I could get the service going
7) moved all the system databases from the old folder location on the destination server to where master now resided; created two empty databases with the names the event log was looking for.
8)Restored master database from source server, and the service finally started up
9)When I went into SSMS, I noticed that the two empty databases I created were in recovery pending
10) dropped one of the databases I didn't need, and restored the Vant database, as well as msdb; everything looks good.
So there it is, I totally don't feel good about this. I don't like the fact that the databases came up in "recovery pending" and also that I had to create the databases it was looking for before I could restore and start up the service, but maybe that's just how it is. Any advice you can give me on how to clean this up would be much appreciated.