MIRROR and continuity

I have a question and excuse me if I look dumb ... but I can't MIRROR MASTER or other dBs. If I lose the server then (primary) ... will the db still be open? do I not require some of these non-mirrorable database to run?

You cannot mirror the system databases - master, model,msdb.

You can mirror all your user databases.

If you loss the server, you cannot access your databases.

Thanks.

Naras

|||I'm still confused. If I lose the physical server I know that I can't access the database. My question is that if MASTER goes down -- does everything on the server go down? If I'm mirroing TESTER -- and I lose MASTER, can I still leverage TESTER?|||

If MAster is screwed then so is your database server instance.

In that case you would failover to the other partner (the mirror of Tester, which would then become the Principal).

That must be located on another instance of SQL server and therefore must have it's own Master database. If you are using safe mode with a witness (which will allow automatic failover) the partner and witness would no longer be able to connect your initial Tester principal database and would failover automatically. The damaged original Master database is no longer involved in the scenario.