I've had a number of people ask me how to go about making a complete copy of a database. Since I've seen it explained elsewhere, but always in techy ways, I thought I'd give an English step-by-step explanation of how to do this.
It's a critical step to do every one in a while, and especially before you perform any upgrades, run system stored procedures, etc..
To create a copy of your database, take the following steps:
1. Click Start->Programs->SQL Server 2000 -> Enterprise Manager (EM)
2. Once EM is running, click on the 'tree control' on the left side, and drill down to Databases->'Your DNN Database'.
3. Right click on 'Your DNN Database' (whatever name you gave it).
4. Select All Tasks -> Detach Database.
5. Step through the wizard and follow the instructions. If there are users, I would log them out w/o a reply (the reply can take up to 20 minutes or so...so if this is a live site I would perform this task late at night or when the site is slow).
6. Your database is now detached and you can copy the actual files to have a true copy of the database.
7. Find out where SQL Server is storing the data. The default is something like C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\8.0\SQL Data\ MSSQL\Data\ (I put my data in a different folder than the default, so there might not be a 'SQL Data' folder)
8. find the .mdf and one or more .ldf files that are named with your database name and copy them to another folder.
Now, once you have a copy of the database, you can reattach it and do whatever damage you want to it, knowing you have an exact copy which you can reattach if things get messed up.
To re-attach a database do the following:
Repeat steps 1-2 above.
3. Right click on the 'Databases' tree node.
4. Select All Tasks -> Attach Database.
5. Follow the wizard instructions. The two important things to know here are that you know where the .mdf file is (which of course you have to know if you want to detach it and copy it!), and that you select the same db owner that you had before (this is not a critical thing, but helpful. Just look in your web.config file and use whatever is *that* username as the db owner in the attach database wizard and you'll be good to go).
Even if you do not have access to EM, just tell your ISP to do the above, zip the copied mdf and ldf files up and put them in a folder on your site so you have this complete copy. I have a co-located server I built myself, so these things are a lot easier for me to accomplish w/o having to worry about ISPs.
And BTW, the ISP I use is an excellent one. Eric Smith at NorthComp.com has a great deal for co-location and for shared servers too, and he'd never have a problem backing up your database for you.