Restore database from mdf file?

[albl]

If a SQL 2000 server instance is destroyed, but the database file (*.mdf) is saved on the disk, can a database within a newly created server instance be built on the saved file?

If I attempt to create a new database and choose the saved mdf file as the data file, then the server refuses to accept this file. Is there a way to create the new database and make it read the standalone mdf file?

Please help if at all possible. Thanks.

[rwendel]

Create the instance of the server with the same parameters as the old one.
Replace its mdf with the one you have?

I haven't worked with administration of SQL Server too much so I don't know.

[MAK]

Look BOL for sp_attach_db and
sp_attach_single_file_db

[albl]

I do appreciate it, MAK. Attaching the database has worked out nicely through EM. Even though we had never explicitly detached the database, the server apparently did so quietly prior to being unintentionally erased from the face of this planet... Thanks for saving us!