How Do I Backup and Restore a SQL Server Database in SSMS? (Step by Step, 2026)

Back up a SQL Server database in SSMS to a .bak file, break it, then restore it back — that is this whole post, in that order. We take a full backup of the DemoDb database from the previous tutorial, delete a row and corrupt another one on purpose, then restore the backup over the damage and prove the data is back. After that we restore the same file a second time as a copy, side by side with the original. Every step has its own real screenshot, and the two restore failures we hit on the way — the ones you will hit too — are shown exactly as they appeared, with their fixes. Versions used in this tutorial SQL Server 2025 (17.x) — Enterprise Developer edition (free for development and testing), build 17.0.1000.7 SQL Server Management Studio 22.11.3 Demo database: DemoDb with the table dbo.DemoCustomers — the same database the previous post connected to Visual Studio The screenshots were captured on a Windows Server 2022 machine; the SSMS clicks are identical on Windows