I am trying to convert a char column to a datetime in a SQL query. I have tried using CAST however I get the following message:
Syntax error converting datetime from character string

The date part of the query looks like this:
(CAST(date_opened_char AS datetime) >= '08/01/2003 00:00:00'

What am I doing wrong?

TIA!
SV

in your date_opened_char is most probably a value (or more) that contains data that cannot be converted to a datetime value.
By the way, if you always compare to the 0:00 time, you can omit it in the query, because sql server defaults to midnight time.

Below is a value that is in the column:

05/13/02 19:20:45

if i execute this statement
then there is no problem. I am not saying that all cannot be converted, but it only takes one to receive an error. Perhaps you can create a stored procedure that browses through the data with a cursor and using the @@error variable you can determine which one(s) create(s) the error.

Also, you have one bracket short after the 'as datetime' part, but this could be of the copy pasting.

how do you check that the data in the char column is correct? If you don't check, a user could have mistaken with the data entry and put the '/' the other way around, like '\'

use isdate(...) :

CAST(case isdate(date_opened_char) when 0 then '01/01/1900' else date_opened_char end AS datetime) >= '08/01/2003 00:00:00'

for that date format you need

convert(datetime, dte, 101)

to beenvironment independant.