Exchange mailbox restore?

[Daveybhoy]

Hey guys,

Time to pick some brains.

Recently we have been moving mailboxes from an external office back to the hub exchange server. The plan was to export historical mail older than 3 months and take it back physically - due to the fact the mailboxes are huge - and leave transfer 3 months over the hub.

Now I started by using exmerge unaware of the 2 gig complete implosion it does on itself. When exmerge hits 2 gig of data it corrupts and can't be fixed. So now I need to restore the mailboxes that exmerge made buggery of.

I have restored the database and mounted it in exchange as a recovery storage group.

Now, I would like to avoid exmerge here! I would like to restore this mail.

The problem is the mailboxes I want to restore are now in the HUB so I'm not sure the "recover mailbox data" option in system manager will work - I'm scared it will try to restore the data over the network to the hub!! Some of these mailboxes are over 10 gig so over the internet to the hub is not what i want. I want to get this data exported to a pst so that I can take it back to the hub physically.

PS. It is only a handful of mailboxes I need to restore. After finding out the exmerge fault I used outlook to archive mail and have moved all other mailboxes without issue.


So basically, to sum it up, I have a recovery storage group, I need to get data out of it, the original mailboxes have been moved to a different exchange server, how do I get the data from the recovery storage group?

 

[walnuts]

The only thing I can think of is using software such as Ontrack Power Control but it's very expensive.

You could also try this:

http://forums.msexchange.org/m_1800436224/tm.htm

 

[^^Gord^^]

Now I started by using exmerge unaware of the 2 gig complete implosion it does on itself. When exmerge hits 2 gig of data it corrupts and can't be fixed. So now I need to restore the mailboxes that exmerge made buggery of.

I assume you configured exmerge to move the mail rather than copy it?

Exmerge creates ANSI PSTs that can only cope with 2GB of data. Outlook 2003/07 use unicode PSTs so you can use that to export larger mailboxes but as you will know it's a slower process as you are doing one at a time.

You also have to rememeber Exchange uses single instance storage so as a rough rule a mailbox will double in size when it's exported to a PST so the actual limit is 1GB of mailbox data.

You could try the Inbox Repair Tool.....

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272227

.....but if it does work you will lose at least some mail.

The problem is the mailboxes I want to restore are now in the HUB so I'm not sure the "recover mailbox data" option in system manager will work - I'm scared it will try to restore the data over the network to the hub!! Some of these mailboxes are over 10 gig so over the internet to the hub is not what i want. I want to get this data exported to a pst so that I can take it back to the hub physically.

When you merge a mailbox from a RSG it will try to restore it back to the original location (Server / Storage Group / Mailbox Store). It will perform a couple of checks before starting; it will check the mailbox is in that location and the GUID matches. At the moment your mailbox still has the correct GUID (as it hasn't been recreated) but the mailbox isn't in the same location as when the backup occured.

You can use ADSIEdit to change the location it looks for the mailbox but that still means restoring over the internet link so it's not an option.

So basically, to sum it up, I have a recovery storage group, I need to get data out of it, the original mailboxes have been moved to a different exchange server, how do I get the data from the recovery storage group?

Microsoft's method would be to move the mailbox back to the external office and then merge the data from the RSG; taking you back to square one.

I'm afraid there isn't any easy option to get around doing the above. Here are your options as I see it. Neither are pretty (epecially number 2!).

Option 1
PST (via Outlook if it's move than 2GB) the current data in the mailbox locally on the hub server. Then either wipe the mailbox with a mailbox policy or delete the content via Outlook. With the now empty mailbox move it to the external office. Perform the merge from the RSG. Export the data you are missing. Again wipe the mailbox and move it back. Reimport the local PST. Take your missing data physically to the hub site and import that as well.

Option 2
Find the users mailbox GUID. You can get this from ADSIEdit by copying the information stored as msExchMailboxGUID for the user. Check that the mailbox store deleted mailbox retention is set to a good few days. Remove the exchange attributes from the AD user but do not purge it from the mailbox store. Add the exchange attributes to the AD user but select the external office's Exchange server to create the mailbox on. Go back into ADSIEdit and change the GUID (msExchMailboxGUID) back to what it was before. Perform the merge from the RSG. Export the data you are missing. Remove the exchange attributes from the AD user. Reconnect the user back to the mailbox on the hub site.

I hope this post makes sense, currently suffering a rather large hangover!

EDIT: I don't know if you have used ADSIEdit before but if you haven't be VERY careful. You are seeing an unrestricted view of AD and it doesn't have the protection you get from GUIs like AD Users and Computers to stop you doing very dangerous things.