The best third party tools is DBARTISIAN.It will definitely help u in all aspects .

Restore Last Full Backup with no recovery

then restore last differential backup with norecovery

finally restore log backup with recovery

There is an option 'NEW QUERY' option in management studio ..use that

check this http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/sql-server-2005/sql-server-2005-architecture-overview.html

If ur recovery model is SIMPLE then u cant take transaction log backups.Try dbcc shrinkfile(log_name,size)

Check ur CPU usage also check any other jobs or tasks are running at the same time.The issue can also be due to low disk space.