How to view transaction logs in SQL Server 2008 [closed]

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I need to view the transaction logs of a database on SQL Server 2008 in order to find a delete transaction and hopefully roll it back.

Unfortunately I have no clue where to start, and I'm finding it difficult to determine which are good articles on Google.

What should I do?

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You could use the undocumented

DBCC LOG(databasename, typeofoutput)

where typeofoutput:

0: Return only the minimum of information for each operation -- the operation, its context and the transaction ID. (Default)
1: As 0, but also retrieve any flags and the log record length.
2: As 1, but also retrieve the object name, index name, page ID and slot ID.
3: Full informational dump of each operation.
4: As 3 but includes a hex dump of the current transaction log row.

For example, DBCC LOG(database, 1)

You could also try fn_dblog.

For rolling back a transaction using the transaction log I would take a look at Stack Overflow post Rollback transaction using transaction log.

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You can't read the transaction log file easily because that's not properly documented. There are basically two ways to do this. Using undocumented or semi-documented database functions or using third-party tools.

Note: This only makes sense if your database is in full recovery mode.

SQL Functions:

DBCC LOG and fn_dblog - more details here and here.

Third-party tools:

Toad for SQL Server and ApexSQL Log.

You can also check out several other topics where this was discussed:

• Rollback transaction using transaction log

• SQL Server Transaction Log Explorer/Analyzer

• Read the log file (*.LDF) in SQL Server 2008

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I accidentally deleted a whole bunch of data in the wrong environment and this post was one of the first ones I found.

Because I was simultaneously panicking and searching for a solution, I went for the first thing I saw - ApexSQL Logs, which was $2000 which was an acceptable cost.

However, I've since found out that Toad for Sql Server can generate undo scripts from transaction logs and it is only $655.

Lastly, found an even cheaper option SysToolsGroup Log Analyzer and it is only $300.