About Diskette Dump Devices

For compatibility with earlier releases, diskettes (floppy disks) can be used to receive dumps. (However, if you need to do this, it is recommended you consider dumping to a disk dump device and then copying the dump to diskette or other external storage media.)

SQL Enterprise Manager cannot be used to initiate a diskette dump, because the console command-line utility must be used to prompt the user and then wait for responses.

Diskette dump devices must be located on the computer where SQL Server is running. By default, when SQL Server is installed, two diskette dump devices are created: DISKETTEDUMPA and DISKETTEDUMPB.

You cannot simultaneously dump multiple databases to the same diskette, but you can execute more than one dump or load at the same time to two diskette dump devices, as long as the diskette dump devices have different controller numbers. You can execute sp_helpdevice to find diskette dump device controller numbers.

A database backup can span many diskettes. When you back up to diskettes, the console utility prompts you to insert new diskettes if necessary. If you are using isql, you must execute the DUMP DATABASE statement and then switch to a different screen session and start the console utility.

To start the console utility

Type:
console [/S servername] [/Ppipename]
where

/S

Is required if you are executing console from a remote computer. However, the diskette drive must reside on the computer running SQL Server.

/Ppipename

Specifies the pipe that the server started with.
Follow the prompts issued by the console utility, which tell you when to insert diskettes.

The following example shows you how to use isql to back up the pubs database to the DISKETTEDUMPA dump device.

To dump the pubs database to the DISKETTEDUMPA dump device

From isql, type:
```
dump database pubs
to diskettedumpa
```
Switch to a different operating-system screen session and start the console utility:
```
console
```
Watch for prompts to add and remove diskettes.