Sorry for the late reply. Been in the middle of a data center move and well...you know how that can be.

Thank you for your responses. I think you kinda missed my question though. I'm not really interested in why SQL couldn't attach to the files. I worked around that like I said. What my question is is was this:

"When I looked at all the open file handles with Sysinternals "Handle.exe", it lists the netperfmon mdf files as being open by the SQL server process.

This server has been rebooted several times during the move since I dropped the original database. Why (WHY!?!?) would SQL still have these files open? "

What I am trying to say there is that SQL doesn't show the db as attached/loaded and its not listed in sys.databases however the OS is telling me that the SQL process has the files open. So why would the SQL process have handles to these files if it is not using them? Even after two reboots.

Thanks again....