Tips and tricks to recover SQL Server database with no backup

Jai Bhagwan Jha

Updated On - April 16, 2024

Structured Query Language or SQL is used to communicate specifically with relational databases. SQL statements perform complex tasks such as updating or retrieving a database. Some of the most popular relational database management systems that use SQL are Oracle, Access, Sybase, Ingres, Microsoft SQL Server, and more. These databases contain data or information which is stored in tables. For various reasons, SQL databases can go corrupt. In such situations, a database backup can save a lot of time and effort. Hence, administrators always recommend backing up databases on a regular basis. Lost or deleted databases can be recovered and restored instantly if you have a backup. Now, we’ll see the reasons for database loss in SQL server.

Reasons for data loss issue

It’s important to know the reasons before recovery of deleted SQL database items. These are some crucial reasons that may result in data loss:

• MDF and NDF files are damaged.
• Corrupted file system.
• Power failure or malware attack.
• Hard disk-related issues.

Database recovery ensures the availability of a database. It is important to maintain backup and recovery processes regularly. Database recovery involves mechanisms to restore the database quickly and accurately after loss or damage. This ensures availability in the case of an outage and more importantly data integrity.

There are some essential commands that can be used to perform the SQL database recovery process:

• DBCC CHECKDB: This command checks the physical and logical integrity of all the objects in the specified database by performing the following operations:

I. DBCC CHECKALLOC
II. DBCC CHECKTABLE
III. DBCC CHECKCATALOG

Note: The above commands can’t be executed separately from DBCC CHECKDB.

• DBCC CHECKDB with REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS:

Using the REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS command may result in data loss. It might result in more data loss than anticipated, but it is worth trying once, if all the other options fail.

Before that, the database should be set to the single-user mode as follows:


Next, run CHECKDB with REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS as follows:


Note: In the above SQL query, “Testmachine2” is the name of the affected database. Replace this with your affected database’s name.

• DBCC CHECKDB with REPAIR_FAST: It does a minor but fast repair of the database without the risk of data loss.



Note: Make sure that the database is set in a single-user mode before running this fix.

The previous inbuilt database recovery options involve data loss or perform only a minor repair on the database. Using one such professional SQL database repair tool, Recoveryfix for SQL Database Recovery. It is a reliable recovery tool that can deal with any level of MDF file corruption. It can efficiently recover all SQL database objects as it is embedded with advanced algorithms and responsible for maintaining the integrity of the data and allows to preview of the recovered SQL database before saving.

Let’s go through the detailed process:

1. Select the MDF database file using the Browse button and click Next.



2. Next, a popup will show you the progress of repair process.



3. The recovered database files can be found in the left pane of the interface. Select all the database objects which you want to save and click Next.



4. One can choose to save the retrieved database objects either to a live SQL instance or to a disk drive. If you’ve selected the latter option, then click on the Browse button to provide a destination path and click Save.



5. The progress bar shows the status of the saving process.



6. A new popup window will show you the summary of the saved database items. Click OK to proceed.



7. Click on Finish to exit the tool.

Conclusion

We have discussed some helpful commands that can be executed for SQL database recovery when there is no backup, and the actual database file is corrupted or lost. These Transact SQL commands involve a high risk of data loss. In case of severe SQL database corruption, we highly recommend Recoveryfix for SQL Database Recovery software for lossless results.