I have a live database that had some data deleted from it and I need that data back. I have a very recent copy of that database that has already been restored on another machine. Unrelated changes have been made to the live database since the backup, so I do not want to wipe out the live database with a full restore.

The data I need is small - just a dozen rows - but those dozen rows each have a couple rows from other tables with foreign keys to it, and those couple rows have god knows how many rows with foreign keys pointing to them, so it would be complicated to restore by hand.

Ideally I'd be able to tell the backup copy of the database to select the dozen rows I need, and the transitive closure of everything that they depend on, and everything that depends on them, and export just that data, which I can then import into the live database without touching anything else.

What's the best approach to take here? Thanks.

Everyone has mentioned sp_generate_inserts. When using this, how do you prevent Identity columns from messing everything up? Do you just turn IDENTITY INSERT on?