Tail log backups capture the tail of the log even if the database is offline, damaged, or missing data files. This might cause incomplete metadata from the restore information commands and msdb. However, only the metadata is incomplete; the captured log is complete and usable. If a tail-log backup has incomplete metadata, in the backupset table, has_incomplete_metadata is set to 1. Also, in the output of RESTORE HEADERONLY, HasIncompleteMetadata is set to 1. To create a tail log backup, use below script BACKUP LOG [DB Name] TO [TLog_Device_Location] WITH NO_TRUNCATE; GO Scenarios That Require a Tail-Log Backup If the database is online and you plan to perform a restore operation on the database, begin by backing up the tail of the log. To avoid an error for an online database, you must use the ... WITH NORECOVERY option of the BACKUP Transact-SQL statement. If a database is offline and fails to start and you need to restore the database, first back up the ta