Drive lost - log files were on that drive - wondering about option

I've got a customer who re-booted their SQL server (SQL 2000) and when it
came up the F: drive - with all the log files - was gone.
They are going to attempt to get the F: drive back on-line - hopefully long
enough to detach the DB's and copy the LOG files to another drive.
If that does not work - we see two options at this moment.
We have backups, including TRANSACTION log backups every hour - last one was
at 3:00 pm today. The server was re-booted just before the 4:00 cycle - so
we have about 50 minutes of "unknown" work that was not backed up. We
realize we could restore all the DB's from the backup/transaction log backup
s
at get us back to 3:00 pm.
Other option would be to attempt to start the DB's with new empty logs. Not
so comfortable with this option. How do we check that the DB's were
closed/shutdown properly when the server rebooted - so we know that we aren'
t
going to be missing rollback/commit operations.
Thanks for any help you can offer - I might not be back till Sunday
afternoon to check this thread - but only have till Tuesday AM to get the bo
x
back up and running.If you can't get your log files back, I suggest you first copy all data
files elsewhere for safe keeping. Then try to attach the databases. If a
database is at a consistent state and has a single log file, SQL Server will
recreate the log and no data will be lost.
For databases that cannot be attached, I suggest you restore from database
and transaction log backups. You can also salvage what you can for the lost
50 minutes by rebuilding logs from the copied data files, running DBCCs and
reconciling. However, you will not have logical or physical data integrity
after recreating logs for a 'dirty' database. You are wise to be
uncomfortable with using those databases as the live version.
Hope this helps.
Dan Guzman
SQL Server MVP
"Steve Z" <SteveZ@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0B9A38A2-067F-4101-9BE5-95D6F59759DC@.microsoft.com...
> I've got a customer who re-booted their SQL server (SQL 2000) and when it
> came up the F: drive - with all the log files - was gone.
> They are going to attempt to get the F: drive back on-line - hopefully
> long
> enough to detach the DB's and copy the LOG files to another drive.
> If that does not work - we see two options at this moment.
> We have backups, including TRANSACTION log backups every hour - last one
> was
> at 3:00 pm today. The server was re-booted just before the 4:00 cycle -
> so
> we have about 50 minutes of "unknown" work that was not backed up. We
> realize we could restore all the DB's from the backup/transaction log
> backups
> at get us back to 3:00 pm.
> Other option would be to attempt to start the DB's with new empty logs.
> Not
> so comfortable with this option. How do we check that the DB's were
> closed/shutdown properly when the server rebooted - so we know that we
> aren't
> going to be missing rollback/commit operations.
> Thanks for any help you can offer - I might not be back till Sunday
> afternoon to check this thread - but only have till Tuesday AM to get the
> box
> back up and running.