How to get Exchange back when lost Domain Controller

[aking]

Lost my domain controller yesterday.
i've rebuilt it and got the basics of the network going again. e.g. net access, file shares etc.
The worst thing about it was i lost my active directory settings.
I have moved the exchange server into the new domain and now it as if i have lost everything in exchange mgmt console - i.e. it is empty and giving me nothing but errors.
i have all the files still in the folders - 'first storage group' and 'second storage group'.

I have not got to grips with Exchange 2007, i'm sure my database is fine but the server is not connecting because i lost all my old active directory settings.
Is there a quick fix for this - or even any fix?
i have mailbox backups but it is the 6GB of public folder data that i am worried about now.

 

[Davetoo]

Did you recover your AD from a backup or did you just recreate your domain?

I'm Certifiable, not cert-ified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

There are no more PDC's! There are DC's with FSMO roles!

 

[aking]

i lost my ad settings - that's why i'm posting this.

 

[baddos]

Wow thats pretty bad news. I'd open a ticket w/ MS to see if they can help you, but yeah you can't separate exchange from it's domain like that.

 

[aking]

That's what i've been learning the hard way.
And putting it in a new domain (even tho everything had the same names) has probably made it irreversable.
Now i'm trying Exmerge to get my public folder data but that seems to be hard to get going on exchange 2007.
There must be a way to get at the data in edb files but yeah, maybe microsoft are the only ones who know how.
Thanks anyway.

 

[baddos]

If it was still up in the old domain, you could have possibly ran exmerge. Moving it to that new domain probably screwed it all up as it's looking for all the schema data that is not there.

MS could possibly help you out there. They might have you extend the schema like you are doing a new install and then be able to exmerge stuff out.

 

[alfa2008]

I was able to restore Public Folder Calendars in a Lab domain I created. It went all smoothly. I'll show you all procedures I followed:

1. Create domain with same domain name, and same DC name
2. Install a Server with same name as old Exchange, and
install Exchange 2007
3. Create First, and Second Storage Group, and names of
Databases same as before (you don't need to mount old
Mailbox Database if you don't need)
4. Replace all data in Second Storage Group with old one
(database, logs....).Allow database to be written by a
Restore. Mount it. It should mount without any problem.
5. Download PFDAVAdmin tool, and copy in DC, and run from
there.
6.Connect to Public folders, and give full access to any
new created user.
7. In user's MS Outlook, in Public Folders, you'll see all
Public Folders appearing, and export to pst.

I hope very much it'll work for you since it worked for me without any problem.

 

[58sniper]

Since this is a "new" domain, Exchange ain't gonna play nicely. Restoring from backup would have resolved pretty much everything. But, since that's not what was done (why not?), you're likely looking at using a third party tool to extract data from the unmounted databases into .pst files so that you can import them into the new server. Database portability isn't going to work here.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Davetoo]

I would quickly create a test environment and restore your AD from the last backup you had (You do backup your DC's, including system state, right?). Then I'd bring up the Exchange in that environment before doing anything else.

I'm Certifiable, not cert-ified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

There are no more PDC's! There are DC's with FSMO roles!

 

[aking]

I think it's clear that restoring is the only sensible way when dealing with exchange 2007... now i know.
Yes i've got backups - i've also got vmware problems (all of these servers are virtual) that probably aren't relevant to this forum - but that's why a restore wasn't a straight forward option.
So for the sake of speed i chose the fastest option and built a new dc - (this particular network v small, 5 users, a few printer, a couple of shared drives) so it's quick. I lost dc (also down to vmware probs) at lunctime and had network back (minus exchange) by end of day.
Although now i've been caught out by exchange i guess it wasn't the fastest option after all....
After i get new exchange box going (i don't see i have many other options now) i'll do restores to a test environment to get old data back (i've got all user mail, it's just public folders).
Got the feeling i've done this the long way around.
Thanks for all the answers and good advice guys.

 

[Zelandakh]

Yes, you've done it a long way round. However, be pleased that you've got some results long after a lot of people would have thrown in the towel.

In future, backup DCs. In fact, have a second one running! Snapshot your virtual boxes.

DR is a solution normally left until it is too late...

 

[aking]

funny you should mention snapshots - that's exactly where the problem started....
Running out of space on one Esx server, snapshot manager was deleting old snapshots and then it got stuck - first time vmware has frozen on me in 1.5years. Might be my fault for using a 3rd party app - always before i used virtual infrastructure client.
So lost my dc, it would no longer start - problems with vdmk files, knew there was prolly a way of getting it back but not v familiar with vmware on the command line (time to learn i guess).
So, i thought i'd leave that for a more relaxed time(!) and just get another dc back up quick.
I think now if only i'd attached to my exchange box one last time before anything else and exported all the public folders using an outlook client still logged in i would have got away with it.
Saying that, if the other esx server was ok then my 2nd dc would have taken over and i wouldn't have had to do any of this!
Really i have some larger vmware issues and i just wanted a quick fix for exchange.
Good in some ways tho - this crash has finally got me the extra resources i've been asking for ;-)

 

[Zelandakh]

Sort of a result then