Restore Microsoft Exchange Server using Microsoft Backup
Restoring Exchange Server
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I know, I know
This post really should be about why you should move to a better disaster recovery plan with storage area networks, bit level backups and redundancy; But, there are many people still using tapes to backup their Exchange data. And, what most people forget to do as part of their backup plan is test restoring that data.
Run a quick check on the ‘net and you will notice that most people want to “restore exchange 2003 mailbox to a different server” or “restore users mailbox data in exchange server”. I am going to show you how to use the Recovery Storage Group and ExMerge to restore single emails from Exchange backups that were made with Microsoft Backup.
Microsoft Backup
So why I am talking about MS Backup? Because it is free, and works perfectly fine for backing up Exchange Server. Plus, if you are still using tapes then you may not be able to afford top end backup software.
This article is not meant to cover backing up Exchange server, but if you want here is a link to a support article at Microsoft.com;
Now that you know how to backup your Exchange data using Microsoft Backup you should read the following articles and then download ExMerge. There is no need for me to write something that has already been written. These articles will show you how to recover an entire mailbox, not a single email. Many times you are just searching for an email that someone deleted outside of the servers retention period, usually 30 days.
- How Recovery Storage Groups Work – Technical detail on RSG
- Recovering Mailboxes with Exchange Server – Step by step, very nice and easy…
- Download ExMerge Here – This will be needed to create the PST file
ExMerge
Using the information from the above articles you should now be able to create your recovery storage group and restore your database onto that RSG. Now you can open ExMerge to extract the email from the backup. Luckily for me someone has written up the first half of this for me. Follow these steps to extract your mailbox into a PST for import into an Outlook client.
Now that you have the PST file for the mailbox with the item you want recovered in it, you should put it on a thumb drive and head on over to the users station. You could restore the file using ExMerge if you wanted, but that would copy or merge the data; And, if you do it at the clients workstation they can find what they want themselves. :)
- Login to the workstation as the user and open Outlook
- On the File Menu highlight Open and Select Outlook Data File
- Select the backup file from your thumb drive and Open
- Now you should have a new personal folders section on the left, this is the backup
- Let the user find the email in their folders and just drag and drop into the current mailbox above
I hope this helps someone who is still stuck on tapes and doesn’t have the luxury of virtual servers and storage area networks. Did this article help you? If so, please leave a comment and tell me how you found me..
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Nice, I like the way you put the article together. I found you by searching Google for “Jim Gaudet”
Thanks Troy!
Nice, I like the way you put the article together. I found you by searching Google for “Jim Gaudet”
Thanks Troy!
When restoring exchange stores verify that the exchange information store service is running.