SharePoint 2007 - 2010 DB Migration

Question

I'm about to perform a DB migration of an Intranet Publishing Site. Is it necessary to create the site collection before performing the DB restore?

Answer 1

To be clearer, you actually only need an Web Application to which you would attach the database. I would highly recomand before doing that go through checking/testing at least by using:

1. Test-SPContentDatabase which will tell you if you got all other dependencies installed, etc. (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263026.aspx)
2. Run pre-upgrade checker (see here http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc262231(office.14).aspx)

Also you would need at least MOSS with SP2 to be able to run these commands. There is so much documentation written on the subject. Start here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262792

Answer 2

Yes, typically the I usually do it is, provision a web application and a site collesction then I detach the content database, copy the database accross and attach db to the site collection.

Use this to mount DB to the existing sitecollection after attaching to the new server:

Mount-SPContentDatabase "" -DatabaseServer "" -WebApplication siteUrl