Old e-mail on Exchange 5.5

[GlenA]

Hi i had a major crash on my server and i'm not sure what to do now. Basically i had 2 partitions: Users and WInNT
Winnt was occupied by NT files and Exchange install, however on my Users partition i found a folder called Exchsrv which has a file tha6t is over 3GB in size!!! I was wondering is this the file that stores all the previous mail? And if i'll format the C drive, reinstall NT and Exchange and then hook this file up would i get my old mail?



And also if i'll restore from a back-up tape, you think old e-mail will be restored?


Cheers

 

[Zelandakh]

oops. Was the file priv.edb? If so, its the exchange database.

If you have the partition available, you can copy the right bits and start the server. Probably not though.

If not, install NT to same partition, install Exchange to same partition, set the Exchange folders to the right place and restore from backup. Should be ok.

Please supply more details.

 

[GlenA]

Thanks. So if i'll format my C partition, reinstall NT and Exchange, then point the Exchange to use that file (it will be safe during the format as it's on the other HDD) it should restore my old e-mails, right?

Some additional info:

The main partition C: has all the system installs.
The second partition on a separet HDD is F: has user's files and this priv.edb file.

The C partition is dead. when i boot i get:

c000021a {Fatal Syatem Error}

The session manager intialisation system proccess terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc0000003

The system has been shut down

Beginning dump of physical memory

restart and set the recovery options in the system control manager or the /crashdebug system start option.


i've already tired restoring, but still the same thing...


I'm just thinking whether its worth to restore from the tape, or simply make a clean install of NT and Exchange, configure it all again and hopefully restore the old mail from priv.edb? And by the way how would i point Exchange to this file? As i've been advised all that is needed is the old mail as some of the users had over 8000! e-mails stored on Exchange. Everything else can be deleted and reinstalled. So basically it's just the old mail that i need to restore...


Thanks very much for your help.