Can I recover this Exchange 2003 database?

[tobey]

Alright, I have very little experience in the server realm so bare with me here... I have a SBS 2003 server here. The OS drive just crashed hard, nothing is recoverable. The Exchange stuff was on a second drive though which is still going, I'm wondering if it's possible to recover anything using the database files alone?

From what I've read, it may be possible, but I'd have to set the server up exactly the way it was. That may be difficult, seeing as how no one has any idea how it was set up or how things were named...

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

 

[krtechsolutions]

If you have both the Exchange database and the logs files you should be golden

fire up the hard drive that you still have as a slave on a machine on use an usb adapter to see if you have them.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Several ways to restore Exchange......starting with a simple straightforward way built into SBS03....it really is as simple as it shows in this video..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQWrY_3pLRw

You'll need to reinstall SBS...configure Exchange to the infostore paths that it was before.

Hopefully they have backups...so you can restore system state/active directory!

You also have another approach to work with....called Exchange Recovery Groups...and you can get quite creative with these and Exmerge.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824126

If you don't have a backup of active directory/system state on the server...when you install SBS and run through the wizard to basically do DCPROMO and setup Exchange...even if you name it the same that it was...it's still technically different. But I'll wait to hear if you have a backup of this or not...because if you don't, this thread can get quite a bit longer with other methods to restore Exchange...because that database will be tied to the prior active directory and Exchange server setup.

 

[tobey]

SBS is up and running again. I didn't think they had any backups (server hasn't been touched by an IT person in years) but I just found a .bkf file from 2008 on an old rev disk which contains an exchange backup and a system state backup. How do I go about restoring these without breaking my fresh install?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Ouch...2008...quite stale. You can give the system state a try..but IMO too old, stale records....I'd skip trying to restore Exchange since that's clearly waaaaay old. But at least restoring the system state would bring back an old snapshot of how things were setup.

How many users?

 

[tobey]

I believe there were only two or three people still using it. I tried to restore the system state backup but it refused saying it was too old (surprise).

 

[BadBoy House]

do the workstations have cached exchange OST files? If you can access these in Outlook you can back them up manually to PST.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

///waiting for NYJimbo to pounce on the spammer!

 

[NYJimbo]

///waiting for NYJimbo to pounce on the spammer!

I swear I saw that same login or something very close to it recently. But this appears to be his first post. Hmmmm...

Anyway, too busy watching a guy get arrested across the street. Not sure why he is, but lots of cops.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Anyway, too busy watching a guy get arrested across the street. Not sure why he is, but lots of cops.

Enjoy your lunchbreak!