How to create an Exchange 5.5 Recovery Server

This information describes recovering your mailbox data and does not go into detail on public folder recovery.This document applies to a couple of different scenarios:


SCENARIO 1 - being that your Information Store has shut down and you need to get mail up and running right away. You would create a blank database on your production box and restore from backup to a recovery server, then Exmerge this data onto the production server.

SCENARIO 2- You have a SINGLE Exchange Server environment and you only have a backup of your Information Store and not your Directory.

SCENARIO 3- You have lost your PDC and have no BDC to promote and/or no backup of your SAM Database. You would follow these steps after recreating your NT accounts.

Follow the steps below to create a new Information Store if you are using Scenario 1

TO CREATE A NEW INFORMATION STORE ON THE PRODUCTION SERVER
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1. Stop the Information Store (if it is not already stopped)
2. Rename your MDBDATA folder on ALL drives to MDBDATA.OLD (this folder normally exists on multiple drive letters)
3. Create a new MDBDATA folder on ALL drives
4. Start the Information Store. You will now have an empty priv.edb and pub.edb and your users can send and receive new mail



HOW TO BUILD A RECOVERY SERVER
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1. Install Exchange using the same Organization name as on the Original Server. This info can be found in your Exchange Server Setup.log file on the original server.


Note: If this log no longer exists, and you are unsure of these names, when starting the Information Store you will receive an error. If you look in your Event Viewer- Application Log you will see this failure and the event will give you the correct organization and site name. Uninstall Exchange and then reinstall using the correct org and site names.


2. When prompted to join the existing site or create a new site, do NOT join the existing site, but create a NEW site with the SAME name as on your original server. (again this is in the Setup.log file)

3.Run Performance Optimizer. If you plan to restore from a backup tape, be sure your database and log files are on the same drive letters as on your originalserver.

4. Apply the same Service Pack as on your original server.

***Note -if a Directory Export was available and the Directory info needed to be recovered, this info could be imported and steps 9-11 could be skipped***

5. Stop the Information Store. Clear out the MDBDATA folder on ALL drives of any log files or the edb.chk file. This folder on ALL drives should be empty.

6. Restore the Information Store from backup.

7. If when starting the Store you receive a -1011 popup, go to a Command Prompt and your Exchsrvr/Bin folder. Type "Isinteg -patch" without the quotes. ONLY do this if prompted with the -1011. Normally this will not occur if restoring from an online backup

8. Once the Information Store is started, you will have mailbox data but no mailboxes.

9. If you had any Recipient Containers that were not the Default, you need to recreate them. For example a container called Sales which contained mailboxes for users in the Sales Dept.

10. Go to the Properties of your Server Name under the Servers Container and the Advanced Tab. Select Consistency Adjuster. Check the top 2 options Filter All Inconsistencies.

11. This will create your mailboxes. They will not be associated with Primary Windows NT accounts. They do not need to be if you will be using Scenario 1 and using Exmerge. If you are using Scenarios 2 or 3, you will need to manually reassociate your mailboxes with the primary Windows NT accounts and recreate your Distribution Lists.

Use the info below if you are following Scenario 1 and will be using Exmerge

RUNNING EXMERGE
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Exmerge simply copies the contents of users' mailboxes to personal folder files. Since it makes a copy of your priv.eb essentially, you will need certain space requirements. For example if your priv.edb is 10GB, you will need 10GB for your priv + 10GB for the pst files + 10% for the loss of single instance storage. You can export the pst files to mapped drive if you lack adequate space on this server.

Also another benefit of Exmerge, is that during Step 2, the Import Process, it does not import corrupted messages into your database. It is a simple GUI interface and the process is easy to follow. The step by step is outlined in this KB article


259688 XADM: How to Use the Exmerge Utility to Extract Data from a Damaged
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=259688