The creation of multiple recoverable units within a database allows a database partition to be reconstructed during maintenance and disaster recovery operations. A method of creating a recovery unit includes partitioning a database into at least two recovery units. A primary catalog of metadata relating to the logical elements of a database such as tables, indexes, and file groups is created. A secondary catalog of metadata relating to the physical elements of a database such as pages, files, B-Trees, and log streams is created for each recovery unit. The primary and secondary metadata catalogs are linked such that only one log stream is associated with any one recovery unit. A single recovery unit may then be exercised to perform recovery or maintenance operations while the remaining recovery units of the database remain online.