Exchange restore - RESTORE.ENV missing!!!

[Aaron_Blosser]

Hmmm... had our Exchange server crash this morning... no problem, we have backups, and the logfiles on a different array than the db's were fine.

I restore from the last full backup and selected a "no loss restore" and UN-checked "commit after restore completes". I was planning to run the ESEUTIL command manually once I checked that all the logs were in good shape.

The restore ran fine and when I looked in the location that I'd set for the "path on exchange server for temporary storage...", that directory was empty. No RESTORE.ENV file! Argh! I tried again, pointing it to different directories on the Exchange server on different drives... all the drives have hundreds of GB free so space isn't an issue. It' s just plain missing.

I have 3 stores in the same storage group that I'm trying to restore, but I'm only doing one store at a time, and I have my restore jobs set so that each one will use a different temp directory.

Anyone have any ideas what's happening? I have just a bit longer to get these restored before the staff starts to get really restless... I think I saw them gathering pitchforks and pulling out maps of where people in IT sit.

I just started another restore job where I selected the "commit" option, so we'll see how it goes, but with 80GB in that store, it'll be a while before I know for sure.

[Sandy_Sandifer]

Hi Aaron,

I'm not sure how relevant my reply is going to be due to the age of this post. In other words, I hope you have your Exchange server up by now, but I have a couple of questions, so that in the future, your questions are all answered:
1. When the restore finishes successfully, it will remove the data from Temp folder. Are you saying that during the restore period it never puts anything in there at all?
2. If the restore completes successfully, then you shouldn't need any files in the Temp directory. You should be able to mount the database and run eseutil to replay the logs.
3. Another solution would be to move the logs out of their current location and uncheck no loss restore, and see if everything restores fine.

I guess my main question is why are you putting so much attention on the Temp directory if the restore is completing successfully. Is the database not starting up? I might have missed something here.

Thanks.