MS SQL Server – Restore Log and Differential Backups Simultaneously

The differential backup is always associated with the last full backup. It is that simple.

So any differential restore is looking for a certain full restore.

So yes, the base is reset. You can't mix and match.

Personally, I wouldn't have monthly full backups and hourly diffs. The frequencies don't match (example: weekly full, daily diff, hourly log). And I wouldn't use any binary file diff rubbish for my backups because I expect to be able to restore them.

Typically, backups to file are appended with a timestamp (e.g. MyDatabase_FULL_201202060900.bak) so you have the option of using a script to generate the restore sequence given a directory of files. Google will give you dozens of examples, as will the SSC script library. I have this script in my library currently.

If the server you've taken the backups from is available, you can generate the restore script from the msdb tables dbo.backupset and dbo.backupmediafamily, example here. Note SSMS will generate the correct script for you and you can use Profiler to capture the queries it uses to do so.