BULK INSERT dropping rows where BCP didn't

[nuct]

Hi,

I currently doing some quite large inserts into sql server. I have managed to do them sucessfully (dropping no rows)using BCP, using a format file. However I read somewhere that BULK INSERT is faster than BCP so I tried using this instead. Oddly enough it drops quite a few rows, even when I use exactly the same format file as the one I used with BCP.

Anybody got any ideas as to why this might be happening?

Cheers,

Simon

 

[RobertT687]

I've seen BULK INSERT hang if the data wasn't exactly right (ie data too wide to fit the column). Could it be primary key violation (ie duplicate rows)? Or a data inconsistency? BCP 'seems' to be a bit more forgiving than BULK INSERT, but BULK INSERT is much faster.