XML data type manipulation in sql server

A very useful link regarding this http://www.15seconds.com/issue/050803.htm.

If your database contains XML data but the field type is text or varchar, then you need to convert or cast the data to XML then manipulate query ,value & exist method described in the above link.

For cast & convert, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187928.aspx