I am tasked with designing a procedure that a client could use to move to a
different database server wuthout losing their data or full-text index. I am
using the KB article Q240867 section labeled "To copy full-text catalogs
between instances of SQL Server to the same local drive or path." When
following this procedure, I first install a clean install of the databases
in question (there is an install program to install our databases onto the
client's server) which includes full-text indexes one one database, onto the
destination machine. Then I restore the contents of the databases by using
backup database on the source machine and restore database (with overwrite)
on the destination. This way, the ID's of the tables are the same on both
systems. I back up the FTDATA folder and registry entries as is described in
the article.

The first deviation from the article happens when the database ID's don't
match. If I follow the article and drop all the full-text tables and
catalogs, they do not get re-created by restoring the registry entries and
FTDATA. So, I only run part of the script as follows:

sp_fulltext_database 'disable'
go
sp_fulltext_service 'clean_up'

After I follow the procedure and finish the 'swap', I also run
sp_fulltext_database 'enable'. Then I stop the Microsoft Search service and
restore the files and registry entries.

Upon startup, I get the following errors in the event log:
The Search service has loaded project <SQLServer SQL0001000008>.
The Content Index for project <SQLServer SQL0001100005> cannot be loaded.
Error: c0041800 - The content index is corrupt. .
Project <SQLServer SQL0001100005> is being reset.
The project <SQLServer SQL0001100005> cannot be initialized. Error:
c0041800 - The content index is corrupt. .
Project <SQLServer SQL0001100005> is being reset.
Project <SQLServer SQL0001100005> contains corrupt Content Index data. The
Search service should automatically correct this problem; however, if this
error continues to appear, remove and recreate the catalog.
The Search service has loaded project <SQLServer SQL0001100005>.
The previous crawl was reset, or was otherwise interrupted. A full crawl of
all content sources will be automatically started. <Project SQLServer
SQL0001100005>
The Search service has loaded project <SQLServer SQL0001100005>.
The previous crawl was reset, or was otherwise interrupted. A full crawl of
all content sources will be automatically started. <Project SQLServer
SQL0001100005>
The crawl on project <SQLServer SQL0001100005> has started.
The crawl on project <SQLServer SQL0001100005> has started.
The end of crawl for project <SQLServer SQL0001100005> has been detected.
The Gatherer successfully processed 0 documents totaling 0K. It failed to
filter 0 documents. 0 URLs could not be reached or were denied access.
The catalog was not propagated, because no new files were detected for the
project <SQLServer SQL0001100005>.
One or more warnings or errors for Gatherer project <SQLServer
SQL0001100005> were logged to file <C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL
Server\MSSQL\FTData\SQLServer\GatherLogs\SQL0001100005.2.gthr>. If you are
interested in these messages, please, look at the file using the gatherer
log query object (gthrlog.vbs, log viewer web page).
The crawl seed <MSSQL75://SQLServer/39237a9a> in project <SQLServer
SQL0001100005> cannot be accessed. Error: 80041201 - The object was not
found. .
The end of crawl for project <SQLServer SQL0001100005> has been detected.
The Gatherer successfully processed 1 documents totaling 0K. It failed to
filter 1 documents. 1 URLs could not be reached or were denied access.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance,
Boris Zakharin
Prime Associates, inc