Recovering database from Transactional Log File(.ldf file)

Hi

I am in a trouble without doing any mistake. I restarted while in parallely my sql server was restarting i.e I opened a management studio.

When it booted up next time. I see that my database is gone. Though it is showed up in the server but has no node below it.

I then checked the mdf files and ldf files and found mdf file to be of 0 KB and ldf file is of 1.73 GB. My database was in full recovery mode but i did not take any database backup.

Here ais the entry from my SQL server log:

The operating system returned error 38(Reached the end of the file.) to SQL Server during a read at offset 0000000000000000 in file 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\DATA\Hello.mdf'. Additional messages in the SQL Server error log and system event log may provide more detail. This is a severe system-level error condition that threatens database integrity and must be corrected immediately. Complete a full database consistency check (DBCC CHECKDB). This error can be caused by many factors; for more information, see SQL Server Books Online.

I wonder if now there is a case to recover my database..Can I restore/recover the database from .ldf file as it was in full recovery model?Any help i shighly appreciated.It is not possible to recover the mdf file with ldf alone. The transaction log files holds the log information that is used to recover the database. MDF is the data file which contains the startup information for the database and points to the other files in the database. User data and objects will be stored in this file.|||

The LDF file would be the log file of the database. There is no way from SQL Server to recover a database from the LDF file alone. However you could try other tools such as:

Lumigent Log Explorer

Red Gate

The above have tools to read SQL Server Database LDF files and might be of some help to you.

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As mentioned by vidya and amit its not possible to restore database from LDF. This is the significance of Backups. You have to have Backup of all the database which can be easily scheduled. In this case though your db is in FULLRecovery model, you have to have a base line(full) backup to restore the database. I don't think any tool can help you on this.

Madhu

|||I have the LDF file and the database file (MDF). The MDF file is 2 days old then ldf file. Is there any way, I can apply all the transaction for these 2 days.

Rajeev