Recovering Exchange Data after DC Crash

In the process of setting up automated backups for our servers, the domain controller crashed. Ugg. We don't have a backup of the system state of the domain controller nor a secondary domain controller. I have rebuilt the domain an d exchange servers (on new boxes) and am trying to extract all the old email using exmerge to associate to the new active directory accounts. Exmerge says that it cannot find the domain.

Is there any way to retreive the Exchange mailbox data so that I can create pst's for the users from it to associate to the new ad accounts?

I am using Windows Server 2000, Active Dir. 2000, Exchange 2000, etc

I have cross-posted this
http://forums.msexchange.org/Recove...00453271/tm.htm

since it is a pretty advanced topic I wanted to post it in a more specialized forum as well. Please review both and help me out if you know the answer to this. Thanks.

bump...

any thoughts?

Sorry zanna, I haven't ever had to do something like that with Exchange, but maybe you can find something useful here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...t/dbrecovr.mspx

Although, I'm sure you probably came across this already.

Only 1 domain controller?

I'll read it. Yea, I walked blindly into this situation. I am a programmer that was pushed into IT. The domain controller went down the same minute as the install of BackupExec (lol + argg). I have been trying to find the answer to this for about 5 days...

Crap, I can't start system manager because the old domain controller crashed. My new DC works just fine but even though the names are the same, the IDS aren't, so there is no relation between old and new.



This is the root of my problem. Since my database cannot connect to the original Active Directory database, then the 1-to-1 relationship between mailbox and user is broken. It seems I have the opposite problem as this article, I lost AD, not Exchange, so I can't remount back to my previous Domains (and user Primary Keys and GUIDs)

Then finally, what I expected is written here



Aww, the article totally hated on me. My first suggestion was to install a backup solution, and in the process, the domain controller crashed, hahah! (I recovered everything but the old mail and yes, the situation is kinda laughable at this point)

There is a section called "Disaster Recovery Strategy Fundamentals" which is a great checklist for making sure your 5.5+ Exchange servers have everything they need for backup. This article is great, I even bookmarked it.

That was a really good read if you haven't already although it totally dooms my optimism of recovering this data. Thanks jmurray.

lol I feel your pain, zanna. Wish there was something more I could do

Thanks. I feel my own pain too, haha.

May want to work on getting another DC, then you might not be in this mess (plus the whole backing up thing)

Don't worry, I've done something similar on a programming aspect. I made major changes to a file without backing it up Now I have to start all over and redo the previous changes I made

word. Its so frustrating... I basically got assigned the "IT Admin" position a year ago as well as "Project Manager" and "Lead Developer" (Because I'm the only programmer :P thats what I call myself), and when I looked at the servers, I basically went "OH $***! this isn't good." I suggest that we begin rebuilding the servers, set up a antivirus and set up a backup. No money was given to me for either. I keep begging for 9 months and nothing. Then 3 months ago, I say, "We REALLY REALLY need a backup or else we are going to lose everything." Then I get the money 2 1/2 months later, and its 2 hours too late. Go figure.

lol I would kill for that to happen to me (getting positioned as IT Admin). I've been waiting for a job like that for years now. I've been stuck in things like first level IT Support and programming jobs, but that's it.

Anyway, good luck with all of this, you seem to have your hands full

It sounds great except for it didn't come with any pay change, just more work. Not to mention I manage 1 guy. Haha! It could be worse. (Plus I'm not certified in anything networking/software/IT and am formally trained as an ood programmer.) I'm just tryin to keep it real.