how to recover deleted or lost ldf file in SQL Server 2000 database ?

1. Backup the data (.mdf) file
2. EXEC sp_detach_db 'dbname' -- this will detach the database from the server
3. Restart SQL Server
The database may still be seen in enterprise manager, but just ignore it.
4. Create a new database with the same name or a different name. You will have to use a different physical file name, which is fine.
5. Stop SQL Server.
6. Rename the new data file that was created to something else (ex: add.bak to the end)
7. Rename the old data file that you want to restore to the name of the newly created file (the same name as the file you changed in the step above)
8. Start SQL Server
Now the db will still be suspect but you now have a log file.
9. Switch to emergency mode on the database. You do this by doing the following:
1. Right click on the database root node in Enterprise manager and bring up the properties.
2. Under the Server Settings tab, check of "Allow modifications to be made directly to the system catalogs".
3. click ok
4. Now go to the master database and open the sysdatabases table.
5. Find the suspected database in here and modify the status column, setting it to: 32768. This will put it into emergency mode.
6. stop then start sql server
10. Now here's the tricky part and I'm not sure how this will work on a single install, i was lucky enough to have SQL Server 2000 installed. But anyways, open up the Import and Export Data (DTS) program from the start menu. And you want to copy data from the old database to a brand new one. Just copy tables and views.