Can you do a partial restore to an ms crm db?

Question

Is there any way (3rd party product or other method) to do a partial restore to ms crm?

Say a user accidentially deleted an account. Is there anyway to restore just that single account and corresponding notes, activities etc?

We limit users' permissions but inevitably they will have permission to delete some things and will want to get that item from a backup.

Right now the only method I can think of is to restore the .bak file to another db and write a bunch of code using the sdk to re-create the items. Are there any other options?

Answer 1

You are correct in that you can only restore to a different database and work from there.

You could then use something like Red Gate data compare to extract the desired rows (14 day trial, but it's worth it's weight in SO Rep anyway)

Answer 2

Red Gate has a tool which will let you restore just certain objects from a database.

Idera has this new virtual database tool where you basically mount the backup as a SQL Server database.

Full disclosure - I haven't used either for this kind of thing - I've always either used audit trails or restored the database and extracted the data manually.

Answer 3

To be honest, I'd go with

Right now the only method I can think of is to restore the .bak file to another db and write a bunch of code using the sdk to re-create the items.

After all, 'Its the only way to be sure....', not to mention the (extremely) vague chance of another record being created with the same GUID, which would cause assorted 'bad stuff' to happen.

Yes, a small number, but still more than 0...