BobF - I had that same discussion with a department head when I worked in technical support for a university, and we were trying to figure out how to properly reconstruct the database the entire school relied upon, and which had failed right before we found out that the daily backups weren't any good - tape failure.
We actually left and went down to get coffee next door, so we could think through the steps - he did NOT like that - we told him he could fire us after we fixed it, but for the moment to get the hell out of our hair so we could get it right.
Fun days,
Bob Bone