There are tons of articles describing what needs to be done in order
to fix a corrupted Master.ldf/mdf
but I cannot find anything that explains why this actually happens or
how to minimize the chances of it.

Can you give pointers in that matter?

Thanks

Tzvika shalom
That what happened two days ago to one of our client. He had a third party
database on his prod. server and once a quarter the vendor required to
upgrade the database (don't ask me why). For an upgrading they had an
application to be run with 'sa' login and as it turns out due to the
bug in their software ( update some system tables in master db, WHY???) the
server crashed.

The moral....... I think we understood..:-))




"tzvikaz" <tzvikaz@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:fb7485be-72ab-46f8-ba92-b34c446e7006@k37g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> There are tons of articles describing what needs to be done in order
> to fix a corrupted Master.ldf/mdf
> but I cannot find anything that explains why this actually happens or
> how to minimize the chances of it.
>
> Can you give pointers in that matter?
>
> Thanks

On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:21:31 -0700 (PDT), tzvikaz <tzvikaz@gmail.com>
wrote:

>There are tons of articles describing what needs to be done in order
>to fix a corrupted Master.ldf/mdf
>but I cannot find anything that explains why this actually happens or
>how to minimize the chances of it.
>
>Can you give pointers in that matter?

The number one reason for a corrupt database , master or otherwise, is
hardware problems.

Roy Harvey
Beacon Falls, CT

> The number one reason for a corrupt database , master or otherwise, is
> hardware problems.
>
> Roy Harvey
> Beacon Falls, CT

I think its too easy to dismiss this issue with saying its a hardware
problem.
Sometimes even doing a large bulk of DELETE from a table causes the
master to get corrupted.
After I fix the corruption everything is back to normal so I dont
understand what you mean by hardware problem? temporary hardware
problem?
what hardware exactly? hard disk? if it happens should I replace my
drive??

The question is if this kind of corruption happens once a year on a
single db, does it count as normal?
does anyone know if mysql or sql server express is more tolerant than
MSDE 2000 and gets less corrpted?

Thanks.

On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:58:36 -0700 (PDT), tzvikaz <tzvikaz@gmail.com>
wrote:

>> The number one reason for a corrupt database , master or otherwise, is
>> hardware problems.
>
>I think its too easy to dismiss this issue with saying its a hardware
>problem.

I did not think I was dismissing it, I thought I was suggesting a
cause.

>Sometimes even doing a large bulk of DELETE from a table causes the
>master to get corrupted.

That is another way of saying that the server is completely
unreliable. What hardware are you using? What release of SQL Server,
patched to what level? What version of Windows? Patched to what
level?

Is the bulk delete against master, or against some other database? If
it is against some other database the only affect on master I can
imagine would be to updated would be when the log file of the db where
the deletes occur auto-grows. (The record of the size of the log file
has to be updated.) If the deletes are against master it still should
not occur, but then there should never be any user data in master
either.

>After I fix the corruption everything is back to normal so I dont
>understand what you mean by hardware problem? temporary hardware
>problem?

Unreliable hardware is often intermittently unreliable. That can be
especially true of memory problems.

>what hardware exactly? hard disk? if it happens should I replace my
>drive??

Hard disk, disk controller, disk controller firmware, disk controller
drivers are all possible. Memory is probably an even bigger issue.
Any server should have ECC memory, which will correct any single-bit
memory errors. I'm sure there are other potential weak spots, but
those are the main ones.

>The question is if this kind of corruption happens once a year on a
>single db, does it count as normal?

No, it is certainly not normal.

>does anyone know if mysql or sql server express is more tolerant than
>MSDE 2000 and gets less corrpted?

If the problem is hardware the choice of RDBMS will make little
difference. Express 2005 is a better product than MSDE 2000, and
would be a clear improvement in many areas, but MSDE should not be
having those problems.

Roy Harvey
Beacon Falls, CT

On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:06:45 -0400, "Roy Harvey (SQL Server MVP)"
<roy_harvey@snet.net> wrote:

>>what hardware exactly? hard disk? if it happens should I replace my
>>drive??
>
>Hard disk, disk controller, disk controller firmware, disk controller
>drivers are all possible. Memory is probably an even bigger issue.
>Any server should have ECC memory, which will correct any single-bit
>memory errors. I'm sure there are other potential weak spots, but
>those are the main ones.

I left out the power supply. A flaky power supply can cause terrible
problems with no discernable cause.

Roy Harvey
Beacon Falls, CT