Restore individual Mailboxes to separate Exchange Environment

[bluechiptech]

I have the task of doin a test restore of indivdual mailboxes for a company. However, the catch is that the mailboxes will be restored to a separate exchange enviroment (separate domain, separate server etc...)

Im assuming that I can maybe use Veritas BExec to do an exchange restore into a AD created user without a mailbox. But the AD user information must match the information on the tape. Can anyone let me know how they would go about doin this?

The key is I have to use the current exchange environment at the test location.

thanks

 

[BrotherJones]

If these mailboxes are going to be migrated to an entirely new exchange organization, one option would be to use the exmerge utility.
take a look here for more info -

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...ec-dcdf-47dc-96da-1c12d67327d5&DisplayLang=en

 

[58sniper]

And the equally important

How to configure an account to use the ExMerge utility in Exchange 2000 Server and in Exchange Server 2003

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292509

Pat Richard, MCSE(2) MCSA:Messaging, CNA(2)

Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[bluechiptech]

Thanks Guys,

I also presented this option to my boss, but he indicated that in an ideal Disater evnvironment. We wont have the option of having exmerge archvive to pst. Which is true, so i guess that makes my task a bit different.

I have be able to restore a mailbox from tape, a brick level backup, so i will need to be able to restore from tape directly into an AD account.

Any ideas?

 

[58sniper]

BRICK LEVEL?! Ugh!

Disaster Recovery for Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...familyid=6e55dd49-8a6c-4f30-947e-bde95917f585

Pat Richard, MCSE(2) MCSA:Messaging, CNA(2)
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[silentsam33]

I work for a provincial government in Canada and we do this all the time for security investigations. We have setup an offline world with no connection to either our test or production domains. As you stated, make sure that the domain name and administrative groups match in our separte AD. The server name does not matter. If both do not match, the databases will not mount, you will get an error 9175. Of course with ADSI you can hack them in, but not a great idea. After you have restored the database and it is mounted, reconnect the restored mailbox to a user account with no mailbox. At this point you can either exmerge the data or use an Outlook client to creat a .pst.
If you have an Exchange 2003 server, you can use the Recovery Storage Group to do this. But keep in mind, the RSG cannot recover mailboxes if the AD account has been deleted or if the mailobox was moved after the backup.

 

[58sniper]

You can also use PowerControls (

http://www.ontrack.com/powercontrols/)

to export mail from an unmounted database to .pst files.

Keep in mind that you can't create .pst files using either PowerControls or a backup server/exmerge if the mailbox is over 2GB (well, not easily).

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt