Restore SQL Backup Error 3241

If the backup restoration fails with SQL error 3241, then the possibility is backup media is damaged. Errors at the time of restoration are generally accounted by the Operating System or discovered by checksum. In this situation, there are three options available to tackle the problem:

• Fix the error and then restart the restoration process.
• Continue to restore the backup and then repair DB after restoration.
• Adopt an alternate to backup restore as a recovery plan.

Although any of the above mentioned options can be adopted in case of backup failure but there are times when none of them can be adopted as a part of DR plan. Reason being the backup restore operation does not move further or there is no alternate available to the backup. Let us have a look at this kind of scenario:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Error 3241

When SQL 2008 database backup is restored to an updated version of SQL Server (2012), SQL error code 3241 is encountered by the users.

Message 3241, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
The media family on device ' ' is incorrectly formed. SQL Server cannot process this media family.
Message 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
RESTORE FILELIST is terminating abnormally.

Under such scenario, if no other mode to get back data is available, the solution is to deploy a third party utility that restore BAK file data into live SQL Server of any edition. The best part about having a solution of this kind is even the backup is inconsistent; there is a solution to work around the problem.

Restore SQL Server 2008 Backup to 2012

With SQL backup file recovery tool, full and differential backup of SQL Server can be restored to SQL compatible scripts or to SQL Server. The software supports all versions of SQL Server (2000, 2005, 2008, 2012 and 2014) and gives option to select multiple BAK file for recovery.

To use this product for troubleshooting SQL error number 3241, a login credentials for the target database must be available so that restored database is smoothly exported to new database. Along with this, there is available option to export the database with and without its schema.