Restoring Exchange 2007 Storage Groups
to a Recovery Storage Group on Windows 2008 Server

The company primary storage group has become corrupt or otherwise un-mountable and now all corporate email is down and users need a fast solution.

The restore of the primary storage group has failed for one reason or another and you as the Exchange admin are unable to recover directly to the first storage group.

Even though this may seem like an almost impossible task, it is a fairly simple solution. Exchange can be restored to a Recovery Storage Group using the Windows Recovery Environment on Windows 2008 and drive image backups made through BackupAssist. All that is needed is to create a recovery storage group along with the primary. Once this is created, you will restoreit and then mount it. After recovery you will merge the recovery storage group with the primary storage group and all email up to the point of the backup will be recovered.

Connect to the server that houses your backup. Before attempting to restore Exchange 2007 using Windows Server Backup from a drive image backup created with BackupAssist, make sure of the following:

• You are completing the restore with Windows Server 2008. Windows Vista only provides support for drive volume restore.
• The backup you wish to restore from is located on either an external hard drive or a remote shared folder (eg. on a NAS device). You cannot restore individual files and folders from a drive image backup located on a REV drive.
• To recover files and folders you must be a member of the Backup Operators or Administrators group, or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority.
• The following registry key will need to contain the string value highlighted below:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\Application Support\
String name: Application Identifier
Data: Exchange

1. Launch BackupAssist and click Restore in the navigation bar.
2. Click Imaging engine restore. Windows Server Backup will then launch.
3. Click Recover under the Actions pane.
4. Once the Recovery Wizard has launched, select “This server”, and then click Next.
5. Select the date from the calendar and the time from the drop-down list of the backup you want to restore from. If you are recovering from this computer and the backup you select is stored on a removable media drive, you will be prompted to insert the relevant media. Then click Next.
6. When asked what you would like to recover, choose the option for Applications, and click Next.
7. Under Applications, highlight “Exchange”, and then click Next.
8. Under Recovery destination, select Recover to another location, select a directory located on the Exchange server, then click Next.
9. Review the details, and click Recover to restore your Exchange Server.

1. Once the recovery process has completed, navigate to the directory containing the backup of your storage group. You will need to rename all of the files in this directory beginning with an ‘E’ to begin with ‘R’. This includes all of your log files. You will now need to create a Recovery Storage Group to mount the database you are restoring. Begin by launching your Exchange Management Console and opening the Disaster recovery toolbox from the Toolbox node in the Exchange tree.
2. When the Disaster recovery toolbox loads you will need to specify you server’s name in order to connect to it. Enter the required details and click Next.
3. Make a Recovery Storage group. Click Create Recovery storage group to being the process.
4. Once the wizard begins, select the storage group you are going to restore to the RSG, then choose Next.
5. It is recommended that you use the default settings for the creation of the recovery storage group. Make a note of the Recovery database path as you will need it in a few minutes. Once you have done this, click Create recovery storage group and complete the wizard.
6. When wizard is complete, launch an explorer window and navigate to the Recovery database path.Copy the renamed files from step 1 into this folder.
7. After copying the renamed database files, go back to the Disaster recovery toolbox and click Mount or dismount databases in the Recovery storage group. Select the newly created RSG and mount it.

1. If you haven’t already mounted your restored data to the recovery storage group, you can do so by following the directions above. Otherwise, launch the Exchange Disaster Recovery Toolbox via Exchange Management Console > Toolbox > Database Recovery Management.
2. With the RSG mounted, return to the menu of the DRT and click Merge or copy mailbox contents.
3. Ensure that the correct mailbox is present in the recovery storage group selection, then click Gather merge information.
4. Double check the merge details then click Perform pre-merge tasks.
5. Select the mailboxes you wish to merge and then choose Perform merge actions.
6. You will be presented with the merge results; check that all tasks were successful and then click Go back to task centre.

Don’t forget to remove the Recovery storage group after you have finished with it. This can be done via the Remove the recovery storage group option from within the disaster recovery toolbox.

If you need more information on how the Ross Group can help you solve your IT problems, contact our sales team at 937-912-3273 or visit the Ross Group Inc web site at www.rossgroupinc.com.