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12.5 single mailbox restore to exchange 2003 freezes(if include/exclude to only restore partial then I get a warning prompt?)

DarienA
Level 2
I saw a similar post earlier this year but that thread seems to have been abandoned. Here's my situation.

I have staged my information store from a previous backup to disk. When I attempt to run a full mailbox restore (redirecting to another dummy account) the restore starts. I can see the calendar and contacts restoring, then it'll start restoring the inbox and freeze... slowly but surely the transfer speed will drop to zero and thats it. I'll have to restart all the services to regain control as atempting to cancel the job just leaves it in a cancel pending state.

As a test I started restoring pieces of the mailbox individually (sent items, calendar, contacts, etc.)all restore no problem... even subfolders of the inbox itself restore fine I can open up the dummy account in outlook and see those items fine. However attempting to restore the inbox itself and the freezing issue occurs.

I took note of the email it was freezing on and attempted a restore minus that email... if froze.

Ok so I'm thinking maybe something in the inbox is corrupted so I select the inbox and hit the include exclude button, don't select subdirectories and choose a date period of items to restore.

Now when I try to run the job I get a prompt that says if you redirect the restore of an exchange 2000 or later storage group it may not mount afterwards. (sigh).

or so now If I attempt to restore the inbox directly to the users inbox. The freeze.

If I attempt a restore directly to the inbox but use include/exclude to import part of the inbox say everything date between 1/1/2008-12/31/2008 the job runs but nothing happens no bytes at all get moved the counter just runs. edit: If I manually select a few mail items the job runs, if I go in to and select a whole bunch of mail items manually (say a month worth), then when I go to run the job I get an unable to create select list error.

I don't know what else to do at this point... was this a known issue and there's a hotfix or does this just mean that inbox portion of the backup is corrupted and.

On a side note using 12.5 do I have to stage to disk to restore items or can I restore directly from the original tape?
3 REPLIES 3

Lively
Level 5

Cannot help you with the main part.  But While you can restore from tape, it will just stage it on the disk.

You will want to Duplicate to Disk like you have done.  If you do not, every time there is a error with the restore the job will stage to disk.  When the data is duplicated to disk, it saves you time in case there are any issues with the restore. 

An option could be to mount the storage group as a recovery storage group in exchange and use the shell to copy the contents of the folder over to the new location.

DarienA
Level 2
Lively can I mount it directly from the "stage" location?

Meaning can I go in to Exchange System Manager create a recovery storage group and point the recovery store directly to the store that I have staged on the USB drive?

EDIT: Ok looks like the answer to that is no, can't point the recovery storage group to a non-fixed drive... (sigh) frustration mounts...

Lively
Level 5
What we normally do here when there is a need to restore from tapes.  (Exchange 2007)

1.  Duplicate the job to disk
2.  We have a "restore" drive on the mail server that I will copy the IMG folder that is restored via the duplicate to disk.
3.  Launch the Exchange MGT shell and use the eseutil /k "example.edb" command.  Once that finishes use eseutil /p "example.edb" command.

This will make sure that everything is stable

At this point.  Launch the management recovery console, then database recovery management.  Create the storage group, then mount the database.

From the exchange shell here is an example command.  The below will restore the email that was sent to bob@aol.com from Example Guy and restore is to exampleguy mail.

restore-mailbox -RSGMailbox 'Guy, Example' -RSGDatabase 'Recovery Storage Group\Example’ –IncludeFolders ‘\Sent Items’ –RecipientKeywords bob@aol.com -id 'exampleguy' -TargetFolder ‘Restore’


Long and a bit of a pain.  But with not being able to see who mail is from in the GRT restore interface, this is what works for us.  From previous experience, send it to your inbox first to make sure everything looks right before sending it to the users.