ISSUE: On 5/28/10, a large document library was accidentally deleted from our SharePoint 2003 Portal (SQL 2005), so I needed to restore from a full site backup I created on 4/12/10, save the doc library, restore again to the 5/28/10 backup, and add the deleted doc library. The last site collection backups I had were from 2/4/2010, but the user said he did too much work since then. On 5/28/10... 1. Created a backup using SharePoint Backup and Restore Tool. 2. Created a site collection backup using stsadm utility on each site collection. 3. Tried using SP Backup and Restore tool to restore to 4/12/10 backup files. It failed saying I have to delete the portal site before I can restore it from backup. 4. I deleted the portal site. 5. Tried using SP Backup and Restore tool to restore to 4/12/10 backup files. Failed with the error message: ------ Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Backup and Restore ------ All restore operations did not succeed. See the log file for details The results of the previous operation are currently displayed. To begin a new operation, click Reset. --------------------------- The following error was found in Application Events Log. SQL Server restore failed. Error: The operation failed on server COK-SP-01. For more information, see the Microsoft Windows Event Log on that server. The SharePoint log in D:\Program Files\SharePoint Portal Server\Logs shows: 00007D10 CRI 80040C68 00000D58 Failed to restore the database.<BR> 00007D10 UNK 00000000 00000D58 No error information available<BR> 00007D10 UNK 00000000 00000D58 No error information available<BR> 00007D10 UNK 00000000 00000D58 Exception in BackupSQL: Source=SQLBkMgd, Message=The operation failed on server COK-SP-01. For more information, see the Microsoft Windows Event Log on that server.<BR> On 6/1/10... (same results with Backup and Restore Tool) 6. Navigated to SharePoint Central Administration for COK-SP-01, clicked on 'Create a portal site' link ERROR: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 7. From SharePoint Central Administration page, clicked on 'Extend an existing virtual server from the Virtual Server List page' Specified custom URL -- /bak_site New top-level Web site works and appears as a new SharePoint site. 8. Tried using SP Backup and Restore Tool to restore from 5/28/10 backup files to the new top-level web site. Failed with same errors as above. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I resolved my issues with 6 hours of assistance from Microsoft Support. I had the RTM version of SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Installing service packs allowed me to access the Create Portal Site and Restore Portal Site pages, whereas before I was getting 'Object reference not set to an instance of an object.' By the way, the order matters when installing service packs for Windows SharePoint Services, WSS, and SharePoint Portal Server, SPS.