Restore Individual Emails from Backup Exec 2010 R2

[Paul_Ryan]

Hello All,

Our CIO has requested his emails from 2008!  

During that time our backups were done on a SDLT1 drive.  I have located the correct tape (and drive) run a Catalog and can see the emails that he wishes to recover.

Problem is. We no longer use the SDLT drives. We have moved to the LTO4 & 5, so the connectors are different on our new media server.

I have connected the SDLT to our old media server (running Backup Exec 2010 R2). I have not plugged the media server into the LAN (didn't think I would need to plus didn't want to mess anything up. This old media server used to be a DC, though as been correctly removed some time ago) 

I have kicked off a restore of the emails and are getting error e000848c - unable to attach to a resource.......

My first question is.  Do I need my media server to be able to communicate with the exchange server where these email were originally stored? If so, I have a problem, as that exchange box is no longer (different box and an upgraded version of exchange)

If this is the case. Would restoring emails which were backup on different hardware be impossible?

Any help is welcomed

Thanks
Marc

[pkh]

The problem is that your Exchange was upgraded.  You cannot restore mail from an older version of Exchange to a newer version.  The Exchange structure is diffeent.  This is a Microsoft limitation, not BE.  You would need to load up the same version of Exchange as the e-mails in a test machine and restore them to this test machine.

Otherwise, duplicate the backup to disk and then use a third-party tool to extract the mail from the mailbox.

[Paul_Ryan]

Thanks for your quick reply.

I forgot to mention, I am looking to restore these emails to a local folder or PST file on the media not via exchange into the users mailbox.

You mention duplicate the back to disk and run a third-party tool.  Can you give me some details of how to achieve this? 

Thanks

[pkh · Accepted solution]

I am looking to restore these emails to a local folder or PST file on the media not via exchange into the users mailbox.

This cannot be done with BE 2010

You mention duplicate the back to disk and run a third-party tool.

Assuming that you have inventory and catalog the tape where the e-mails reside, just go to job setup and create a duplicate job to duplicate the backup set to disk.  If you originally have GRT enabled, then you should see a .img folder.  You then use a tool like Ontrack Powercontrols to extract the e-mails from the .ebd file in the .img folder.

[CraigV]

Hi,

BE 2012 can restore to a *.pst, but if this isn't on your radar, or you haven't taken a thorough look at it, then it isn't an option.

Your other option is to stage your Information Store to disk (check my article and stop after you have duplicated the IS to disk). Once done, use a 3rd party application like Kernel for Exchange to crack open the *.edb and then pull the mails out of that into a *.pst. Works well, and I have used it on a number of occasions:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/restoring-exchange-or-individual-mailboxesitems-using-backup-exec-howto

THank!

[Paul_Ryan]

Thanks Craig.

Our Production Media Server is running BE 2012.  The reason we are not running this restore via that server is that our old tape drive SDLT uses a different SCSI connector and I didn't want to remove the current card due to the time this restore is taking.

I have kicked off a job which appears to be staging to a Restore-to-disk folder and will try a extract tool. 

Cheers

[CraigV]

Check the BE 2012 HCL and see if SDLT is listed. If it is, then your restore just became a lot easier as BE 2012 will restore your mails to a *.pst as 1 of the options. Otherwise what you're doing will definitely work as I have used it myself.

[Paul_Ryan]

Thanks for everyones help.

I have managed to get the emails I wanted by staging the Information Store to disk, then installing Ontrack Powercontrols and extracting the e-mails from the .ebd file in the .img folder.

regards,

Marc