I'm working on a restore procedure for the case where all MDF files
are missing, but the LDF files are all intact. A full backup is done
every 24 hours, and a log backup is done every 3 hours. After
restoring the last full + log backups, is it at all possible to use
the LDF files to recover data from that point up to a newer point in
time?

I've found a post which explains how to do this on SQL Server 2000
<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.....ms-sqlserver/
browse_thread/thread/3ef5c7cbc0a83334/f3b0c70811d35ed7>, but step 4
fails with the following error message:
BACKUP LOG cannot be performed because there is no current database
backup.

l0b0 (victor.engmark (AT) gmail (DOT) com) writes:
At that point it may be a little late. Say that disaster strikes and
your MDF file is dead. At this point you can perform BACKUP LOG WITH
NO_TRUNCATE to back up the log. Then you restore and apply all logs
including this one.

It seems that Dan left out one point his post. And which point is fairly
obvious: you need to take a full backup of the newly created dummy database.
Since Dan read this group regularly, I hope is able to step in and clarify.



--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel (AT) sommarskog (DOT) se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...ads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx

On Aug 22, 12:38 pm, Erland Sommarskog <esq... (AT) sommarskog (DOT) se> wrote:
Thanks! I ended up doing the following:
1. BACKUP LOG database TO DISK = 'C:\database.bak' WITH NO_TRUNCATE;
2. Restore full + log backups without recovery
3. RESTORE LOG database FROM DISK='C:\database.bak' WITH MOVE
'database_log' TO 'L:\database_log.LDF', RECOVERY;

It works fine.