Recovery From LOG Disk Failure

I am writing up a general purpose document regarding Disaster Recovery and Backup and Restore, etc. I have a question that I've been unable to find any definitive answer on, and I was hoping that someone might have an answer.





Here is the scenario and what I have so far, and my question:





Scenario - A simple database, with one MDF and one LDF, each on it's own disk, with no mirroring or filegroups etc.





Disaster - the LOG disk fails.





To simulate the disaster, I shut down SQL Server, and delete the LDF manually.





When I restart SQL Server, the database is marked as suspect. As expected :)





So, now the recovery begins..... I've read that in this case there is no data loss, but I find that hard to believe. Can anyone confirm?





Anyway, how to restore the database to usable status? Here is what I've come up with so far:





1) Do a backup of "the tail of the log." This works even though there is no log. I have no idea why really, but I can't proceed otherwise.





2) Detach the database.





3) Reattach the database. This auto-creates a new log file (albeit not in the location I want, which makes for more work after).





At this point the database appears to be fine. I have not seen any lost data or problems, but of course I'm working on a test database, not with live users hitting it constantly. If the database were under heavy use, I expect that there might indeed be data lost?





Is this the recommended way to recover from a disaster of this type? Or, would it be better to just go back to your last good backups and forget about "up to the minute" recovery in this case? Or is there yet another means?





Thanks,


Travis