[robdalas]

I stupidly forgot to back up my DB before uninstalling and then re-installing a more up-to-date version of SQL Server Express (2008 R2).  I still have the .mdf and .ldf  files in the Data folder of the older version but don't know how to restore using these.  I tried copying them into the Data folder of the R2 version and using the Attach option but it came up with an error. What am I doing wrong??

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Best Answer

If the older version was properly shut down, you should just be able to attach them.  Worst case, install the old version to another system, attach the files there, do a backup, and then restore them onto the new machine.
It might help knowing what error you are getting too.
or

Here are details that cover parts 2) and 3) in case re-creating log doesn’t work which can happen if MDF file is corrupted.

You can recover data and structure only by reading MDF file with some third party tool that can de-code what’s written as binary data but even with such tools you can’t always do the job completely.

In such cases you can try SQL Server Restore Toolbox. From what I know this is the only tool that can do this kind of job but it’s quite expensive.

http://www.sqlserver.restoretools.com/

Much better idea is to try to recover these from any old backups if you have any

[williamrosser85]

Best Answer

If the older version was properly shut down, you should just be able to attach them.  Worst case, install the old version to another system, attach the files there, do a backup, and then restore them onto the new machine.
It might help knowing what error you are getting too.
or

Here are details that cover parts 2) and 3) in case re-creating log doesn’t work which can happen if MDF file is corrupted.

You can recover data and structure only by reading MDF file with some third party tool that can de-code what’s written as binary data but even with such tools you can’t always do the job completely.

In such cases you can try SQL Server Restore Toolbox. From what I know this is the only tool that can do this kind of job but it’s quite expensive.

http://www.sqlserver.restoretools.com/

Much better idea is to try to recover these from any old backups if you have any