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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-27T10:56:14+00:00

Given a SQL Server 2008 .bak file, is there a way to restore the

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Given a SQL Server 2008 .bak file, is there a way to restore the data file only from the .bak file, without the transaction log?

The reason I’m asking is that the transaction log file size of this database is huge – exceeding the disc space I have readily available.

I have no interest in the transaction log, and no interest in any uncompleted transactions. Normally I would simply shrink the log to zero, once I’ve restored the database. But that doesn’t help when I have insufficient disc space to create the log in the first place.

What I need is a way to tell SQL Server to restore only the data from the .bak file, not the transaction log. Is there any way to do that?

Note that I have no control over the generation of the .bak file – it’s from an external source. Shrinking the transaction log before generating the .bak file is not an option.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    This is really a question for the ServerFault or DBA sites, but the short answer is no, you can only restore the full .bak file (leaving aside ‘exotic’ scenarios such as filegroup or piecemeal restores). You don’t say what “huge” means, but disk space is cheap; if adding more really isn’t an option then you need to find an alternative way of getting the data from your external source.

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