How To Restore Exchange 2003 Database To Recovery Storage Group

Complete Description of Exchange Storage Group

Recovery Storage Group is basically one of the possible ways of mounting mailbox database to the same Server as the original copy of the mailbox only. Users keen to find out how to restore Exchange 2003 database to Recovery Storage Group are recommended to go through the following segment to know more about it, its working, and requirement. The respective facility has been offered under Exchange 2003 Server edition which eliminates the requirement of setting up a different recovery performing system for recovering data.

Mostly, the need to recover data from an Exchange Server mailbox store is the first approach users make when the particular data is unavailable to them due to any possible reason or cause. Although, being offered from a renowned banner like Microsoft makes the procedure trustworthy in itself but still it has been observed built in procedures lack some or the other facility which degrades their worth.

Overview of Recovery Storage Group

In the older versions of Exchange servers like 2003, administrator must configure the separate Microsoft AD (Active Directory) service on a recovery server if user wants to mount a different copy of production Exchange server database. A separate computer is not needed in the Exchange server 2003 Recovery Storage Group features when user wants to restore mailbox data from mailbox store.

The state of the Active Directory Topology of the Exchange server must be in a same state when the copy of the mailbox database was made. It means the mailboxes that user want to recover must not be deleted or removed from the system or transferred to the different server or database.

User should use the Recovery Storage Group when following conditions are true

Logical information within Active Directory regarding storage group as well as its mailbox is kept intact and unaltered.

In case you need to restore data from an individual mailbox, group of database, or single database, that are maintained within one storage group. For instance; you can make use of Recovery Storage Group facility for recovering items that got deleted or removed from a certain user mailbox or, can repair an alternative database's copy while the other copy of it is under production.

If user already has Recovery Storage Group then follow the simple manual steps to recover mailbox data and if user doesn't have Recovery Storage Group, then user has to create RSG at very first and then follow manual steps to restore mailbox data to RSG.

Creation of the Recovery Storage Group

Following steps are carried out to create a Recovery Storage Group

• Open the Exchange System Manager. Click on the Administrative Groups then AdministrativeGroupName – Servers.
• Right Click on the ServerName then on New then click on the Recovery Storage Group.
• Write the name of Recovery Storage Group in the Name box.
  Note: Use the same name for the RSG when user had used for the original Storage Group. If user faces an error like the object StorageGroupName already exists, then use a different name for the RSG.
• Specify the location for the Transaction Log location and System path location boxes. The location for the RSG of Transaction log files should be different from the location that is specified for the original storage group of Transaction log files. Then click Ok.
• Right click on the RSG that user has created then click on the Add Database to Server.
• Click on the mailbox store that user want to add to the RSG from the Selected database dialog box, and then click on the Ok button.
• In the Mailbox Store Properties box, review the mailbox store properties and then click on the Ok.

Restore a Mailbox Store to the Recovery Storage Group

User can restore mailbox store to RSG by either following two given below steps

• Online Backup.
• Step by step copy database files to the appropriate folder on the Exchange server.

Lets discuss about the second point i.e. manually copy database files to the Exchange server.

Manually Copy Database Files to a Recovery Storage Group

• First of all make sure that the database which user wants to restore is in consistent state means in the "clean shutdown state". To know about the consistency state type the following from the command prompt – ExchSrvr\Bin folder enter then Eseutil/mh YourDatabaseName.edb From the output line, note down the state whether it is in the Clean Shutdown or Dirty Shutdown State.
• After that do the following:
  • If database state is consistent then follow step 3
  • If database state isn't consistent then and log files exists in the server then use the Eseutil.exe tool to perform the soft recovery of database. If database isn't consistent and log files do not exists then use the Eseutil utility to perform hard recovery on the database.
• After the successful completion of the hard repair, do the offline defragmentation of the recovered database. To perform the offline defragmentation, type the following on the command prompt after switching into ExchSrvr\Bin folder: eseutil /d YourDatabaseName.edb
• Copy the .EDB and the .STM database files to the appropriate folders of the Exchange server.
• If the databases are mounted in the RSG then do the following:
  • Dismount the databases.
  • Otherwise use the Eseutil utility to know that the databases are in the "clean shutdown" state.
• Open the Exchange System Manager then view the properties of the stored database. Click on the Mailbox Store Properties box from Database tab, confirm that the This database can be overwritten by a restore check box is selected.
• Then after mount the database.

While copying mailbox store to Recovery Storage Group, sometimes Exchange mailbox store might be corrupted or damaged because of server errors like virus attacks or other internal server errors. In this situation user has a better choice i.e. Exchange database recovery software which used to recover damaged or corrupted database file(EDB) data into healthy database or into different Exchange server. It recovers mailbox data without making changes to the original file structure in a safe and secure way.