That's 2005+ syntax.

Look up sp_password for SQL 2000 and older.

Or a sever with a few heavily used databases and a few very seldom used databases...

No, but there's a way to not open the database at all until someone logs in. It's usually a bad idea.

Why? What problem is this behaviour causing?

I assume you mean ERRORLOG, ERRORLOG.1, etc. They're text files, any text editor or word processor can handle them

Double click the file. Windows will bring up a dialog that says

Select...

Because part of the startup process is opening and recovering every database. If it didn't, then the first time a user connected they'd have to wait for the recovery process,...

What file are you trying to open?

I usually use UltraEdit for it's ability to automatically reload the file on change.

What's in the error log?

Notepad or any other text editor. The error log files are plain text.

Extent fragmentation has to do with the position of extents within the file, not the file in the storage system. No amount of backup/restore will change the position of extents...

Maybe. Why's it so essential that the files be contiguous?

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on way too many factors to answer.

A restore will recreate the database as it was at the time of backup. If you want something different, do the restore then make the changes.

If E drive is a cluster resource and is currently owned by the active node then the drive will not be present on the passive node at all, as expected.

But...

If you want to partition the clustered index (a unique one enforcing the pk), you have to include the partition column in the key, it's not optional. If you don't...