I've had a few follow-ups on my two posts about boot page and file header page corruption – asking if its possible to do single-page restore operations for these pages. Let's try:

CREATE DATABASE BootPageTest;
GO

– Single page restore is only possible using the FULL recovery model
ALTER DATABASE BootPageTest SET RECOVERY FULL;
GO

BACKUP DATABASE BootPageTest TO DISK = 'C:sqlskillsBootPageTest.bck';
GO
BACKUP LOG BootPageTest TO DISK = 'C:sqlskillsBootPageTest.trn';
GO

RESTORE DATABASE BootPageTest PAGE = '1:9' FROM DISK = 'C:sqlskillsBootPageTest.bck';
GO

Msg 3111, Level 16, State 1, Line 2
Page (1:9) is a control page which cannot be restored in isolation. To repair this page, the entire file must be restored.
Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 2
RESTORE DATABASE is terminating abnormally.

The answer is no. The following page types cannot be restored using single-page restore:

  • File header pages (see here)
  • Boot page (see here)
  • GAM, SGAM, DIFF map, ML map pages (see here)

Related Posts