I would urge anyone who encounters a similar issue to read Paul Randal's blog (http://sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/) as the likelyhood is that the database will be in an inconsistent state. We had similar issues recently, on a system we didn't manage for the customer but were happy to try and help out with. Paul's blog was our first port-of-call, just to refresh ourselves on the steps we should take. Unfortunately, the database was not recoverable without data loss and unknown inconsistency, which wasn't acceptable to the customer, but not so important to call in data recovery experts. We had explained the issue of likely data inconsistency to the customer and they were able to act accordingly. BTW James, not saying that you were wrong here as you probably had no choice, but if the consistency of the database is critical because, say, its a banking system, then using data recovery experts may be the only way left to you in trying to get the deleted file back, in an effort to prevent unknown data inconsistency.

The DBCC CHECKDB ...REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS... is the absolute last thing you should do (http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/2007/09/15/CorruptionLastResortsThatPeopleTryFirst.aspx), when all-esle has failed, and you should do your best to understand the consequences of this action on the database.