Disaster recovery with drive that has been optimized

[Lightspeed1]

Hey folks,
I sure hope that one of you Exchange gurus can help me.
I have a NT4 BDC that was running exchange5.5 SP4 with extreme database corruption. (40 screaming mad engineers who can't access 50 thousand email messages- yes they are packrats, no matter what I tell them about cleaning things out) there are two partitions on a 17 gig SCSI drive. partition 1 (c) had begun to run low on space so the optimizer was run on it. this moved part of the MDB database to the other 10 gig partition (E). I am running Backup Exec 8.6 with the Exchange Agent. I have a solid backup from the night before Exchange went south so I am sitting good there, but after restore and eseutil isinteg etc etc I still can't get the Info store started. When I go to do the restore I have the option of selecting the directory service and the info store but it seems like BE8.6 is putting ALL of the info store on the C drive instead of spreading it over the two partitions as the optimizer created it. It failed three times due to low disk space before I did some drastic (and frantic) data reshuffling to free up enough room to get a successful restore of some kind, which I finally did get, but now I have service specific error 3355445011 that won't allow the Info store to start. The MS knowledge base indicates that this is a registry error and to delete a specific key, however when I go to the location that the key should be in it does not exist! I am SOOOO desperately in need of some help. Specifically, I need to know what logs to delete or keep whether I should delete them before or after the restore and what logs I should be looking for to match up with my good copy of Pub.edb and Priv.edb on tape. Any insight into the registry error and the info store not defaulting to the optimized locations and even more how I get them to do so would be great. As i am sure you have figured out I don't have much experience configuring or restoring Exchange. THANKS in advance, I am running on five hours of sleep in the last 24, so your brains have to be working better than mine!!

Regards,
Lightspeed1

 

[Lightspeed1]

Alright - I get to respond to my own post!! Built recovery server, installed Exchange, ran restore from tape, PAID VERY CLOSE ATTENTION to what services needed to be running and not running during this process, deleted logs, ran eseutil, and isinteg - SUCCESS!! Nice to have the knowledge, but that kind of stress, learning on the fly, is rough on this old man!!

Lightspeed1

 

[seanos]

your problem might have come from having exchange server services running when you restored/created the backup. This will have corrupted the database on restore, and hence why it didnt work. If it worked from the backup i'm presuming you had them shut down om backup and were maybe running them when you tried to recover over the top.
Exchange is a bit fussy about having all of its services shut down when you restore offline backups.

 

[Zelandakh]

Another option is restarting before isinteg -patch AND after. That's undocumented I believe....

Lightspeed - don't suppose you documented it completely did you? It'd make a wicked FAQ!!!

 

[Lightspeed1]

Zelandakh,
The funny thing is, that I used part of the MSKB disaster recovery FAQ and part of the Veritas knowledge base disaster recovery FAQ. Combined, they seemed to be the solution! I did document it, and will try to put it together as an FAQ. Exchsrvr5.5 disaster recovery seems to be a pretty hot topic! I think the first time I ran through the recovery process I was so tired and stressed that I missed some key steps and the order in which they needed to be performed. My shining bit of knowledge that I have taken from all this is to have a written plan for disaster recovery processes (cause God knows it's hard to think straight when your tired and running scared!!) and to do an occasional dry run, Install Exch to a lightweight server box and restore my backups and bring the IS back up. I have instituted it as part of my monthly service routine at all of my sites running Exchange. I figure after a few go arounds I'll be able to pull it off in my sleep!
Regards,
Lightspeed1