Do not bother to include an "order by" because when the "merged" table has a clustered index, SQL server will automatically perform an order by.

Just a comment on that. If...

In SQL 2000 the seeks turn to scans only when the nvarchar is on the right hand side compared to a varchar. when the table is nvarchar and the sarg...

Cannot recover the master database. Exiting

There's your problem. Wiith the master db corrupt, there's no way SQL will start. May have been disk corruption. Might be worth while checking the...

Very odd. Local system should always be able to log on. does agent have the same service account?

Do you know a local admin account for the machine? (not a domain...

That's a difficult one to answer, Gail. I have been using Windows Authentication, with my first name as User (with Administrator rights) and a blank password.

Not what are you logging...

Well, the on-disk page structure and the in memory page structure are identical (afaik) so it should be enough to take 2 very large tables, with lots of columns in...

I've never heard that myself. Got a source? I'd like to check it out.

afaik, the position of columns within the data page has no impact on speed of searching. If it does,...

What account is SQL running under? (check services, from administrative tools.)

I believe it is best to have frequently searched fields of a static size early in the table

Why do you think that?

You can change the order of columns in...

And was there anything in the application event log from sql server at the time you tried to start it?

I saw your reply, but the answer to my question isn't there. When you tried to start SQL from the services manager and it wouldn't start, what error or message...

Both failed to start.

With what error? and what's in the event log (application event log) for that time?

Let me guess, no database backup?

Pleasure. I've had the problem a few times.

What happens is that both sides of the expression must be of the same type. If the column is varchar and the parameter...

You want to clear out inactive transactions from the log?

If the database is in simple recovery mode, the log will truncate itself automatically after a checkpoint. If you're using full...

the ldf is the transaction log. It's the record of what modifications have been made and isn't intended to be read.

What info are you trying to get? Why do you...