Unable to restore database

Question

I am trying to restore several databases and I have no clue why some of them fail with the following error:

Msg 3634, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
The operating system returned the error '1244(The operation being requested was not performed because the user has not been authenticated.)' while attempting 'RestoreContainer::ValidateTargetForCreation' on 'K:\Logs\MyDatabase.ldf'.

Msg 3156, Level 16, State 8, Line 1
File 'MyDatabase_log' cannot be restored to 'K:\Logs\MyDatabase.ldf'. Use WITH MOVE to identify a valid location for the file.

Msg 3119, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Problems were identified while planning for the RESTORE statement. Previous messages provide details.

Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
RESTORE DATABASE is terminating abnormally.

This is the SQL statement that I'm using

RESTORE DATABASE [MyDatabase]
FROM DISK = 'K:\Backups\MyDatabase_backup_2014_10_14_055006_4726051.bak'
WITH REPLACE,
MOVE 'MyDatabase_data' TO 'K:\Data\MyDatabase.mdf',
MOVE 'MyDatabase_log' TO 'K:\Logs\MyDatabase.ldf',
STATS = 10

As I said, some of them will work perfectly fine, while others will give me an error similar to the above. Unfortunately I can't find a pattern for the ones that fail / succeed.

If there was some sort of authentication issue, why does my SQL work on some but not on others? What am I missing?

LE: I had to give this user the sysadmin role for a completely unrelated issue. This may have also fixed this. I'll investigate and come back.

Answer 1

As part of a different issue I had to give my login the sysadmin role. I haven't seen the problem I described above since then.

Yes, it may work now, but I am not happy with this solution, partially because I don't quite understand what was going on.

Later edit: As pointed out by Thomas in a comment, here's what's going on:

If the database exists, RESTORE permissions default to members of the sysadmin and dbcreator fixed server roles and the owner (dbo) of the database (for the FROM DATABASE_SNAPSHOT option, the database always exists).

Answer 2

I received this error because the log file (.ldf) existed in the folder that I was restoring to.

Deleting the orphan file resolved the problem.