Is there a method to estimate the recovery time of a SQL Server 2005 database?

Question

I am looking at a large-ish SQL Server 2005 database, that has entered into Recovery mode, and I am wondering if there is any way to estimate how long it's going to be until the database has recovered?

Answer 1

If you look at the server logs, it will add a log entry after every 1% of progress or so. From that you can guestimate the time left. It's usually what I end up having to do.

Answer 2

Any more than a few seconds means an outage during a multi-million update row that needs undone. You'll have to follow progress in the SQL error log.

Slightly cheeky, but you could read "Understanding Recovery Performance in SQL Server" while you wait...