Verify that contents of a textbox appear in a table

Hi,

I'm a "classic asp" programmer migrating over to asp.net (vb). A process I would have found v. easy in .asp is causing me a huge problem in asp.net. In a webform .aspx file I have three controls: txtName, lblError and btnContinue.

The Challenge:

Once text is entered in "txtName" and "btnContinue" clicked, I want to look-up in a table to see if I have a record that matches the text.

Previously in Classic ASP, I would have opened a recordset WHERE the record matched the txtName input - i.e.
IF recordset.BOF AND recordset.EOF Then
' record does not exist so show error and allow further attempt
ELSE
' record exists so continue with process
END IF

Please can someone help me to understand and achieve a solution to this challenge - sorry this is very basic stuff, but I have been searching the net and reading without success.

Many Thanks,

Don.< ...