Restoring the Exchange Databases

We can now begin restoring the Mailbox and Public Folder Stores from backup, in this article we use NT Backup, you should of course use the backup solution implemented in your Exchange messaging environment.

Before we do anything else let’s open the Exchange System Manager and drill down and expand the Mailbox and Public Folder Stores. Because we installed Exchange Server 2003 using the /DisasterRecovery switch, they should be in a dismounted state, which is also the case in Figure 11 below.

Figure 11: Dismounted Stores in the Exchange System Manager

Note
If you managed to take a copy of the Exchange databases and log files from the old server, now is the time to bring them back to their respective location(s) on the new server and have them mounted. Depending on the state of the stores, you may have to repair them before they can be mounted.

Now start NT Backup by clicking Start > Run and type NTBackup then click the Restore and Manage Media tab. In order to restore the databases from backup right-click File in the left pane and select Catalog, then click Browse and locate the .BKF file or media containing the data that is to be restored. When it has been opened expand the Catalog then select the respective Mailbox and Public folder stores as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12: Selecting the Mailbox and Public Folder Stores that are to be Restored

Click Start Restore. The box shown in Figure 13 will appear, here the server should already be specified in the Restore To: field, if not do so now. In the Temporary location for log and patch files: specify a temp folder such as the one in Figure 13. Make sure to enable the Last Restore Set (Log file reply will start after this restore completes.) checkbox if there are no additional log files to restore. Select the Mount Database After Restore checkbox depending on whether you want the stores to mount automatically after the restore.

Note
There’s one important thing to have in mind when restoring one or more Mailbox Store(s) from backup after installing a new Exchange Server using the /DisasterRecovery switch, and that is if an Exchange Recovery Storage Group exists when doing the restore, all stores will be redirected to the Recovery Storage Group. This will make the restore job fail and an Event ID Error 9635 will be thrown to the Application log. In order to resolve this problem delete the Recovery Storage Group prior to doing the restore. If you for some reason don’t want to delete the Recovery Storage Group, you can add a DWORD value named Recovery SG Override under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ParametersSystem. Make sure you enable it by specifying 1 in the Value Data box.

Click OK and let the restore job complete.

Figure 13: Specifying the Server and Temp location of the Log files

Click Close.

Figure 14: The Restore is Complete

Now open the Exchange System Manager one more time and verify all Mailbox and Public Folder Stores have been mounted, if not mount them manually. When all the Stores have been mounted make sure you can see the mailboxes in the Mailboxes container under each Mailbox Store. Also verify all Public Folders are listed under in the Public Folder tree. If things show up as expected try to logon to a Mailbox and verify Mail flow, if successful we can call the restore a success – congratulations