Upgrading fulltext data from a SQL Server 2005 database to SQL Server 2012 by restoring a database backup.
We have copied the database from SQL Server 2005 having MDF, LDF & full-text catalog that is required for upgrading & importing a SQL Server 2005 full-text catalog into SQL Server 2012.
Database files from SQL Server 2005
When the database is restored on SQL Server 2012, a new database file will be created for the full-text catalog. The default name of this file is ftrow_catalog-name.ndf. For example, if you catalog-name is userdetails, the default name of the SQL Server 2012 database file would be ftrow_Userdetails.ndf. But if the default name is already being used in the target directory, the new database file would be named ftrow_Userdetails-name{GUID}.ndf, where GUID is the Globally Unique Identifier of the new file.
After the catalogs have been upgraded, the sys.database_files and sys.master_files are updated to remove the catalog entries and the path column in sys.fulltext_catalogs is set to NULL.
Case 1 : File details after attaching all MDF, LDF & full-text catalog on SQL 2012
Case 2: File details after attaching all MDF, LDF on SQL 2012, in case your catalog folder got lost & misplaced.
If SQL Server cannot find a full-text catalog file or if the full-text file was moved during the attach operation without specifying a new location, the behavior depends on the selected full-text upgrade option. If the full-text upgrade option is Import or Rebuild, the attached full-text catalog is rebuilt. If the full-text upgrade option is Reset, the attached full-text catalog is reset.
good article. thanks a lot