Coming across Page level corruption in SQL Server is the worst nightmare for any SQL administrators or professionals. The SQL page-level error can jeopardize all your crucial data saved on the server. Hence, to know about the corruption, its causes and the solutions to fix SQL database page level corruption at an early stage would be a wise move.
The Structure query language is also known as SQL Server. It is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that is used by many small as well as large organization’s to store or manage their crucial data. However, being a SQL Database admin, you might have faced several database related issues including SQL database page level corruption. Getting this error could lead you to inaccessibility of your crucial data even having full admin privileges. Therefore, before going to the solution part, let’s know the root cause of page-level corruption in SQL Server.
Possible Causes of SQL Server Page Level Corruption
SQL Server stores entire database information in the form of pages as a page is the basic storage unit of SQL Server database. The SQL database files such as MDF & LDF are separated into numerous pages. Whenever corruption takes place on SQL Server, it starts at the page level first. Therefore, it is quite easy to fix it an individual page rather than a complete file. Below are some possible reasons that cause page level corruption in SQL Server:
Hardware Failure: A malfunction within the electronic circuits of a hard drive, or any other components of the computer system is the foremost reason for getting page-level corruption in SQL Server database. However, one can avoid it by regular monitoring of hardware components of the system.
Abrupt Power Failure: Interruption in power supply during the running state of the database could lead you inaccessibility of your crucial data. Hence, keeping an alternative to regulate the power supply to the server could avoid the corruption in SQL Server.
Virus or Malware attack: While downloading any software application to the server, make sure the setup files are properly scanned in order to avoid database corruption.
Wrong Update Installation: Avoid installing unnecessary updates to keep your SQL Server Database healthy can be a good practice.
Note: In case you find any problem while accessing data due to any of the reasons mentioned above, then it is recommended to take a backup copy of your database and initiate for some quick fixes.
How to Repair/Fix SQL Database Page Level Corruption?
By executing DBCC CHECKDB command, one can repair or fix SQL page-level corruption with ease. But before executing this command, it is advised to take the complete backup of your original SQL Database files (MDF & LDF) to protect your data from any data disaster situation.
Let’s follow the steps below to know how to find the corrupt page in SQL Server:
- Download a text-comparison tool in order to check the differences between the original and the corrupted database files.
- Now execute the DBCC CHECKDB command on the damaged or corrupted files. This command will check the database files thoroughly and identifies the issue if any.
- Now switch on the trace flag 3604 and run the DBCC PAGE command to examine the infected page contents.
DBCC TRACEON (3604)
DBCC PAGE ({ ‘dbname’ | dbid}, filenum, pagenum [, printopt={0|1|2|3}])
Here, in this command Filenum & Pagenum are denotes as page ids. Some other parameters are:
0 – It is used to print page header
1 – It denotes SQL page header with per row hex dumps
2 – Page header with entire page hex dump of the page
3 – Page header along with per row interpretation
- To confirm the page number, run the Select * from dbo.tablename command.
- Now after confirming the location of corruption, use the comparison tool to compare the corruption file with the original backup file.
- At last, fix the infected or corrupted page and run the DBCC CHECKDB command on the recovered database files in order to repair the page-level corruption.
Automated solution to fix Page Level Corruption in SQL Server
Though, executing the aforementioned methods are quite challenging as it requires thorough technical knowledge in order to fix SQL Server page level corruption. Hence, it is advised to opt for a professional SQL Recovery tool to resolve SQL Database corruption issue with ease.
Conclusion
In this article, I have mentioned two easy and quick solutions to fix the page level corruption in SQL Server. You can choose any of the given methods as per your knowledge or experience. If you still have any suggestions, just drop a message here in the comment section below.
