Administering SQL Server

Overwriting Backup Media

By overwriting backups on media, the existing contents of the backup set are overwritten with the new backup and are no longer available. For disk backup media, only the files used by the backup device(s) specified in the backup operation are overwritten; other files on the disk are unaffected. When overwriting backups, the existing media header can be preserved, and the new backup is created as the first backup on the backup device. If there is no existing media header, a valid media header with an associated media name and media description is written automatically. If the existing media header is invalid, the backup operation terminates.

Backup media is not overwritten if either of the following conditions is met:

However, these checks can be explicitly skipped if you are sure you want to overwrite the existing media (for example, if you know that the backups on the tape are no longer needed).

If the backup media is password protected by Microsoft® Windows NT® 4.0 or Windows® 2000, Microsoft SQL Server™ does not write to the media. To overwrite media that is password protected, you need to reinitialize the media.

To create a database backup

Transact-SQL

Transact-SQL

Enterprise Manager

Enterprise Manager

SQL-DMO

See Also

sp_configure