Check out the Books OnLine. Specifically, use the Index search tab and enter:

Joins-SQL Server. Then double click on the sub-topic Transact-SQL.

That explains that using =* or *= can cause ambiguity.

-SQLBill

...

What I like about your Real Life stories is that you give the steps you followed. I've printed several of them for my own trouble-shooting reference.

-SQLBill

You only have ONE .bak file, correct?

If so, that's really just the database. You can't restore PART of a .bak file.

-SQLBill

BTW-your UNIX software may be doing more 'behind the scenes' than you are aware of.

For example....Let's say you have a date and time in UNIX....October 26th 2:00 AM.

What will that...

In SQL Server datetime datatype is a two 4-byte integer. The first 4 bytes store the number of days after 1 January 1900 and the second 4 bytes stores the...

Oooo, Jonathan beat me to the answer. Must have been just by a second or two. (BTW-his suggestion is better than mine).

-SQLBill

Something like this might work:

ALTER TABLE tablename

ADD datefield DATETIME CHECK

(datefield > GETDATE() AND datefield < GETDATE()+730)

-SQLBill

SINGLE USER mode stops anyone else from connecting. Depending on the WITH option, you can wait until transactions are done, or you can kick everyone out and rollback any transactions....

How critical is your data?

Have you talked to the users of the data?

I'm REQUIRED BY LAW to keep my data for two years. I backup daily and when the data...

Okay, I missed your comment about the port issue.

Next, what type of authentication is DEV_AP1 set up to use? (IN Enterprise Manager, right click on the server/instance and check the...

First thing to check, which port is DEV_AP1 listening on? (The first instance is usually 1433, the second instance is usually something else).

Second, is your ODBC connection to DEV_AP1...

The answer WASN'T "always be "Hardware".

The question WAS: What's the FIRST thing you should check when troubleshooting the problem? (that's not the EXACT wording, but close enough). The answer was...

BTW-SA account ONLY works with SQL Authentication.

-SQLBill

When I had to restore to my SAN, all I needed to do was put the database in SINGLE_USER mode and then do the RESTORE. I didn't have to stop...

You really can't do it without dropping the table and recreating it as Allen says. Even if you use Enterprise Manager, it will still drop the table and recreate it....