How to Restore an Individual Exchange 2010 Mailbox with Windows Server Backup
How to Restore an Individual Exchange 2010 Mailbox with Windows Server Backup
In this tutorial I’ll demonstrate the step by step process for recovering individual mailbox items for an Exchange Server 2010 mailbox using Windows Server Backup. This procedure has the following stages:
- Backing Up the Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox Database
- Restoring an Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox Database to an Alternate Location
- Bringing the Restored Database to a Clean Shutdown State with ESEUtil
- Creating an Exchange Server 2010 Recovery Database
- Restoring Mailbox Items from a Recovery Database
The mailbox user “Alex Heyne” is being used for this tutorial, and he has the following items in his inbox.
Exchange 2010 Mailbox User
Backing Up the Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox Database
The mailbox server was backed up using Windows Server Backup. You can refer to this tutorial for the exact steps to perform Exchange Server 2010 mailbox server backups with Windows Server Backup.
In this scenario the user has deleted the mail items and they have since been purged from the recoverable deleted items folder as well. Because the mailbox database is still in production we’ll need to use a Recovery Database to restore the backup.
Restoring an Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox Database to an Alternate Location
The first step is to perform a restore of the mailbox server backup, redirecting the restore to an alternate location on the server. Start by launching Windows Server Backup, and then in the Actions pane click on Recover to start the Recovery Wizard.
Launch the Windows Server Backup Recovery Wizard
Choose the location of the backup you wish to restore from, and click Next to continue.
Choose the Backup Location to Restore from
Choose the backup date and time to restore from, and click Next to continue.
Choose the Backup Date and Time to Restore from
For Exchange Server 2010 mailbox database restores choose Applications as the Recovery Type. Click Next to continue.
Choose the Recovery Type of Applications
Choose Exchange as the application to recover, and check the box to not perform a roll forward of the database. Click Next to continue.
Select Exchange as the application to recover
This step is very important. Select Recover to another location and enter the path to a folder that is different to the location of the live mailbox database or log files. Click Next to continue.
Select Recover to Another Location
At the confirmation screen if you are happy with the selections you’ve made click on Recover to start the restore.
Click on Recover to start the restore
When the restore has completed successfully you can close the Recovery Wizard.
Close the Recovery Wizard when the restore is complete
On the Exchange Server 2010 mailbox server where the database files were restored open Windows Explorer and look at the folder where the restored files are located. Notice how the recovery process has created the original folder structure for the data under the D:\Recovery folder.
Those restored paths are important for the next steps.
Bringing the Restored Database to a Clean Shutdown State with ESEUtil
The restored database file will be in a state known as “dirty shutdown”. You can confirm this by running the following ESEUtil command, specifying the path to the restored .edb file on your server.
[PS] D:\>eseutil /mh 'D:\Recovery\D_\Data\EX201\Mailbox Database EX2 01.edb
Extensible Storage Engine Utilities for Microsoft(R) Exchange Server
Version 14.01
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Initiating FILE DUMP mode...
Database: D:\Recovery\D_\Data\EX201\Mailbox Database EX2 01.edb
DATABASE HEADER:
Checksum Information:
Expected Checksum: 0x1d0abd9b
Actual Checksum: 0x1d0abd9b
Fields:
File Type: Database
Checksum: 0x1d0abd9b
Format ulMagic: 0x89abcdef
Engine ulMagic: 0x89abcdef
Format ulVersion: 0x620,17
Engine ulVersion: 0x620,17
Created ulVersion: 0x620,17
DB Signature: Create time:12/03/2010 21:20:08 Rand:715244149 Computer:
cbDbPage: 32768
dbtime: 21550 (0x542e)
State: Dirty Shutdown
Log Required: 143-143 (0x8f-0x8f)
Next check the state of the log files with the following ESEUtil command, specifying the path to the restored log files. Note the end of the path is the log file prefix, in this case “E00″.
[PS] D:\>eseutil /ml D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E00
Extensible Storage Engine Utilities for Microsoft(R) Exchange Server
Version 14.01
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Initiating FILE DUMP mode...
Verifying log files...
Base name: E00
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000007B.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000007C.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000007D.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000007E.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000007F.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000080.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000081.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000082.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000083.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000084.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000085.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000086.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000087.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000088.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000089.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000008A.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000008B.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000008C.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000008D.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000008E.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E000000008F.log - OK
Log file: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201\E0000000090.log - OK
No damaged log files were found.
Operation completed successfully in 0.922 seconds.
Now we can run ESEUtil in recovery mode to bring the database into a clean shutdown state.
[PS] D:\>eseutil /r E00 /i /l D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201 /d 'D:\Recovery\D_\Data\EX201\Mailbox Database EX2 01.edb'
Extensible Storage Engine Utilities for Microsoft(R) Exchange Server
Version 14.01
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Initiating RECOVERY mode...
Logfile base name: E00
Log files: D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201
System files:
Database Directory: D:\Recovery\D_\Data\EX201\Mailbox Database EX2 01.edb
Performing soft recovery...
Restore Status (% complete)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................
Operation completed successfully in 0.985 seconds.
Now run ESEUtil to check the database state again.
[PS] D:\>eseutil /mh 'D:\Recovery\D_\Data\EX201\Mailbox Database EX2 01.edb' | findstr "State:"
State: Clean Shutdown
Note: if the database is still in a dirty shutdown state you can try a repair using ESEUtil /p instead.
[PS] D:\>eseutil /p 'D:\Recovery\D_\Data\EX201\Mailbox Database EX2 01.edb'
Extensible Storage Engine Utilities for Microsoft(R) Exchange Server
Version 14.01
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Initiating REPAIR mode...
Database: .\Mailbox Database EX2 01.edb
Temp. Database: TEMPREPAIR1492.EDB
Checking database integrity.
The database is not up-to-date. This operation may find that
this database is corrupt because data from the log files has
yet to be placed in the database.
To ensure the database is up-to-date please use the 'Recovery' operation.
Scanning Status (% complete)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
...................................................
Integrity check successful.
Note:
It is recommended that you immediately perform a full backup
of this database. If you restore a backup made before the
repair, the database will be rolled back to the state
it was in at the time of that backup.
Operation completed successfully in 3.547 seconds.
Creating an Exchange Server 2010 Recovery Database
The next stage of the recovery process is creating the Recovery Database. Launch the Exchange Management Shell. Run the New-MailboxDatabase cmdlet with the following parameters:
- -Recovery:$true (specifies that the database will be a Recovery Database)
- -EdbFilePath (the path to the restored mailbox database file)
- -LogFolderPath (the path to be used for transaction log files, which must be an empty folder)
- -Server (the server that the recovery is being performed on)
In this example the following command is run.
[PS] D:\>New-MailboxDatabase RecoveryDB -Server EX2 -Recovery:$true -EdbFilePath 'D:\Recovery\D_\Data\EX201\Mailbox Database EX2 01.edb' -LogFolderPath 'D:\Recovery\E_\Logs\EX201-RecoveryDB' WARNING: Recovery database 'RecoveryDB' was created using existing file D:\Recovery\D_\Data\EX201\Mailbox Database EX2 01.edb. The database must be brought into a clean shutdown state before it can be mounted. Name Server Recovery ReplicationType ---- ------ -------- --------------- RecoveryDB EX2 True None
Note the warning about the database not being in a clean shutdown state. Since we’ve already brought the database to a clean shutdown state we can now mount the recovery database.
[PS] D:\>Mount-Database RecoveryDB
Restoring Mailbox Items from a Recovery Database
With the recovery database mounted we can now proceed with mailbox item restores. You can see the available items to restore by looking at the mailbox statistics for the recovery database.
[PS] D:\>Get-MailboxStatistics -Database RecoveryDB
DisplayName ItemCount StorageLimitStatus
----------- --------- ------------------
Alex Heyne 11 BelowLimit
SystemMailbox{f13446dd... 1 BelowLimit
To restore all mailbox items into a sub-folder of the existing mailbox so that they can be inspected use the following command.
[PS] D:\>Restore-Mailbox -Identity "Alex Heyne" -RecoveryDatabase RecoveryDB -RecoveryMailbox "Alex Heyne" -TargetFolder Restore Confirm Are you sure you want to perform this action? Recovering mailbox content from mailbox 'Alex Heyne' in the recovery database 'RecoveryDB' to the mailbox for 'Alex Heyne (Alex.Heyne@exchangeserverpro.net)'. This operation may take a long time to complete. [Y] Yes [A] Yes to All [N] No [L] No to All [?] Help (default is "Y"): y
The restored items will now be visible in the mailbox.
Restored Individual Mailbox in Exchange Server 2010