"The media family on device 'Foo.bak' is incorrectly formed." When restoring with SSMS
  • Greg B
    0
    Should I be able to restore a MSP360 SQL backup using SSMS?

    When I try to select the .bak file in the Restore Database dialog I get the following error:

    The media family on device 'Foo.bak' is incorrectly formed. SQL Server cannot process this media family.
    RESTORE HEADERONLY is terminating abnormally. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 3241)

    The source SQL server instance version is 14.0.2027.2 on Windows Server 2019 Datacenter. The destination instance is version 14.0.2027.2 on Windows 10 Pro.
    Greg B Options
  • David Gugick
    118
    ↪Greg B
    If you use MSP360 / CloudBerry Backup to back up the database, then you either need to use MSP360 Backup to perform the restore of the SQL Server database, or you need to use MSP360 Backup to restore the backup files to disk and then use Management Studio to perform the database restore. You cannot, as you've seen, simply restore from the backup files themselves as they are encrypted and in a proprietary MSP360 format. I hope that helps.
    David Gugick Options
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