This is a strangest error I have come across whilst working with SharePoint 2010, the full error is this.
[12/20/2011
5:29:10 PM] Warning: [WSS_Content] The operation did not proceed far enough
to allow RESTART. Reissue the statement without the RESTART qualifier.
RESTORE
DATABASE is terminating abnormally.
The error message was written to the file restore.log found in the SharePoint backup folder, it seems that the following keyword in TSQL caused the error.
IF EXISTS ( SELECT * FROM master..sysdatabases WHERE has_dbaccess(name)=1 AND
name=@db_name
)
BEGIN
SELECT 1 as ErrorCode
END
ELSE
BEGIN RESTORE DATABASE [WSS_Content] FROM
DISK=@db_location
WITH STATS=5, FILE=1, MOVE @db_OldName TO @db_NewFile, MOVE @db_OldLogName TO @db_NewLogFile, NOREWIND, NOUNLOAD, RESTART, RECOVERY
END
The combination of software I had installed was SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 with SQL Server 2008 R2
Resolution
To fix this error I took the drastic action of downgrading SQL Server to 2008 R1, the keyword RESTART no longer appears when I restore the SharePoint Farm. This problem could also be down to SP1 issues.