Troubleshooting and Disaster Recovery › Microsoft SQL Server Disaster Recovery › The Master Database › Suggested Database Restore Sequence

Suggested Database Restore Sequence

We recommend that you restore the databases in the following order to avoid conflicts:

1. Stop all applications that may be using this instance of Microsoft SQL Server. Also stop the SQL Server Agent service.
2. Restore the [master] database.
3. Restore the [msdb] database immediately after you restore the master database.
4. Restore the [model] database immediately after you restore the msdb database.
5. Restore all other databases in normal mode.
6. Restore the distribution database for replication, if one exists.

Note: These suggestions are not requirements, but following them speeds and simplifies the disaster recovery procedure. If you restore other databases in addition to the master database before restoring msdb, Microsoft SQL server loses part of the backup and restore history for the other databases when msdb is restored. For more information about restoring the master database, see Restore Master Databases or see the Microsoft SQL Server documentation.