Simple I bet - Backing up mailboxes 1

[Tolly777]

Hi Peeps!

Well, this is my first 'live' day with our new exchange server, and I'm scared!!!!! I've read loads of posts on here for the last 4 months, preparing for this day!!

I hope someone can help me.. it's a MSBACKUP question.

(Im using the Seagate Tapestor - Travan 20gb drive - with MSBACKUP) (as seagate don't supply their own software! GGGrrr, dam you seagate!)

I'd like to backup all the 'mailboxes' (MBX) on our exchange 2000 server. I've notice exchange creates a new drive labelled (M which has two folders "MBX" and "Public Folders".

When I'm logged in as an Administrator to the domain, I notice that I can't actually view the contents of any other folder under the (MBX) directory, except for 'Administrator' ... which leads me onto my main question.

I'm using 'MSBACKUP', and I want to backup all my mailboxes. But it doesn't seem to back anything up at all! .. weird.... Is it because the administrator account doesn't have rights to the MBX folders?

I noticed in the 'MSBACKUP' you can select the 'First Storage Group' (which btw is where my accounts are stored) but this has the same effect, i.e. nothing backed up!

BUT! I can backup any folder I wish on the C:\ drive without a problem, which makes me believe its a rights issue!

(If I backup in this manor, will I be able to restore a mailbox correctly if I accidently delete an account.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

*i'm only ickle, so be gentle, if this is a daft question!'

 

[budrap]

First of all it is absolutely imperative that you not attempt to back up the Installable File System Drive (M According to MS doing so can damage your database!

Download the white paper at the following URL:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...e2000/proddocs/onlinebooks/disrec/default.asp

Although typically not very concise, it contains a lot of basic info for doing both Exch and Win 2000 backups and restores. The Exch database is touchy and more prone to corruption than it should be. Don't do anymore backups, especially online backups until you've read this.

You need to understand the difference between online and offline backups and just what it is that needs to be backed up (basically the contents of the MDBDATA directory) and how to do that safely. And that only covers the data.

You'll also need a good backup of the complete Exchange system itself (excluding the data) if you want to be able to recover quickly from a system crash.

If you're using NTBACKUP you can't backup individual mailboxes, you can only backup the the entire mailstore database and transaction logs. To do this from a non-Exchange system you need to install the Exchange System Manager on the computer you're running NTBACKUP on. Doing so coincidentally installs the necessary extensions that allow NTBACKUP to do an online backup of Exchange.

Take your time and you'll be fine but if you rush into this you can do more harm than good.