I have a backup of a database from db2 express-c v9.5. I've installed v9.7, but can't restore to it. As far as I can tell IBM no longer offers downloads of 9.5 Is there any other way to get it? I've been googling for about an hour, but all downloads go back to IBM.

If I can't get a copy of 9.5, is there any way to update my backups to 9.7, without taking the server down for an offline backup?

Thanks.

I think you should be able to restore a 9.5 backup to 9.7 (although I could be wrong). What operating systems are the backup and restore systems, and what error messages are you getting?

It said I could restore from an offline backup, but not a rolling one. I don't have the error message test available now, but I can post it tomorrow. I'm backing up from Centos 5 and restoring on Ubuntu Jaunty. I was using DB2 9.7 from IBM's site. I also tried DB2 9.5 bundled up into a .deb for Ubuntu Hardy, but that wouldn't install on three different systems (and now I've got to unclog apt as well).

Try adding "without rolling forward" to the restore command

If you do continue to get error messages, then please post the complete (and exact) commands issued and the complete (and exact) error message you get. You can use the copy and paste functions to do that.

valadil, as far as I know backup/restore between lower to upper version of DB2 only works from full off-line backup. This is only supported way of migration.

When new version of DB2 Express-C is released by IBM previous version is no more available to download. So when v9.7 express-c was released v9.5 was dismissed and so it is not available to download any more.

There is a DB2 Express-C IBM official forum, if you need any specific question about DB2 Express-C: developerWorks : Information Management : IBM DB2 Express Forum

Please don't bother with deb package on Ubuntu Hardy, because I think it is not working well. I suggest to use the following how-to (excellent step-by-step instructions): developerWorks : Information Management : IBM DB2 Express Forum : How-to: Ubuntu 7.10 Server x86 32-bit ...

If you can't get out of this problem, I can upload DB2 Express-C v9.5 to you. I have two Linux-32bit versions of DB2: DB2 Express-C v9.5 and DB2 Express-C v9.5.2 (this is DB2 with included fixpack 2). I have installed both on Ubuntu and both are working well. What I would need is some kind of public available FTP server in your company/organization that I can connect to and upload DB2-Express-C. So you need to tell me more info: which version of DB2 Express-C you have (db2level is the command to execute to get this info) and IP address of FTP server at you location. You can contact me at grofaty at hotmail dot com.

I couldn't get it to restore (even with "without rolling forward") so I gave up and took an offline snapshot. That required a db2 migrate db NAMEOFDB, but seems to have worked.

That said, I really wish IBM would keep older versions around. I'm never deleting one of their installers again. I had to backup from production, restore to test, offline backup from test, then restore to 9.7. If I didn't have the test server, prod would have had to have gone offline for the backup.

If you've got the space & time: fill a disk with the output of "db2move sample export". Also punch your DDL with db2look.
You will always be able to re-build your database in the new environment.