Unable to restore Exchange 2003 Mailbox Store

[E2K3]

I am restoring an Exchange 2003 Recovery Storage Group but am getting an error code which I am unable to locate.

My exchange environment consists of 4 Storage Groups each containing individual Mailbox Stores. I am able to restore mailboxes from Storage Group1 ONLY but I get the following errors when I try to restore Storage Groups 2, 3 and 4.

11:35:42 (1966732.001) INF - Beginning restore from server BackupServer to client ExchangeServer.
11:35:44 (1966732.001) TAR - Microsoft Information Store:\Storage Group 3\SG3 Mailbox Store 1
11:35:44 (1966732.001) ERR - unable to create object for restore: Microsoft Information Store:\Storage Group 3\SG3 Mailbox Store 1  (BEDS 0x2000FE1B: FS_NO_MORE_DLE

)
11:38:39 (1966732.001) INF - Waiting for positioning of media id Number on server BackupServer for reading.
11:38:42 (1966732.001) INF - Continuing restore from server BackupServer to client ExchangeServer.
11:38:43 (1966732.001) TAR - Microsoft Information Store:\Storage Group 3\Log files_1188451829
11:38:43 (1966732.001) ERR - unable to create object for restore: Microsoft Information Store:\Storage Group 3\Log files_1188451829 (BEDS 0x2000FE1B: FS_NO_MORE_DLE

)
11:38:44 (1966732.001) INF - Commit is set, but no log files are included in this restore request. Log files are required to perform Exchange 2000/2003 database recovery.
11:38:44 (1966732.001) INF - TAR EXITING WITH STATUS = 5
11:38:44 (1966732.001) INF - TAR RESTORED 0 OF 2 FILES SUCCESSFULLY
11:38:44 (1966732.001) INF - TAR KEPT 0 EXISTING FILES
11:38:44 (1966732.001) INF - TAR PARTIALLY RESTORED 0 FILES
11:38:44 (1966732.001) Status of restore from image created Wed Aug 29 23:30:29 2007 = tar did not find all the files to be restored

11:38:47 INF - Server status = 5
11:38:49 (1966732.xxx) INF - Status = the restore failed to recover the requested files.

I have checked the security permissions on all Mailbox stores and all are correct.

Thanks

[CY]

Hi,

This may sounds too obvious, but have you checked the checkbox "This database can be overwritten by a restore" for the Mailbox Stores in Storage Group 2, 3, and 4?

Take a look at this document - please verify your steps.  Hope it helps.

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/281259.htm

[E2K3]

Thanks for the reply - I have followed these document steps many times and the "This database can be overwritten by a restore"  is checked.

But still no luck - if it was all the Storage Groups I would be thinking I am missing something - but for one to work and others to fail, I just don't get it.

[CY]

Hmmm...

Is this the first time you tired to restore SG 2, 3, or 4?  Or, you have successfully restored SG 2~ 4 before on this Exchange server?  If so, has the NetBackup client been upgraded on this server since?  Do you have NBU 5.1 or 6.0?

I assume you (or the account you use) have proper rights in Exchange.  If in doubt, please double check with your company's Exchange Administrator.

I worked with Veritas Tech Support for some strange Exchange restore issue, one was similar to yours, in the past.  But now I don't deal with Exchange directly, so I can't recall all the details.  However I remembered the support engineer suggested me to delete the recovery storage group DB files (those .edb and .stm -- you can find them by clicking "Browse" in the SG's properties dialog box), and recreate them.

Hope this helps.

[E2K3]

Ok...still no luck, heres the answers:

I assume you (or the account you use) have proper rights in Exchange.  If in doubt, please double check with your company's Exchange Administrator.  I am able to restore from Storage Group 1 with the same account so it is not account related.

However I remembered the support engineer suggested me to delete the recovery storage group DB files (those .edb and .stm -- you can find them by clicking "Browse" in the SG's properties dialog box), and recreate them. I deleted the edb and stm as you suggested then tried a restore - this failed with the same error. I then deleted them again, mounted the store (which recreates them) and retried the restore - again this failed with the same error.

If so, has the NetBackup client been upgraded on this server since?  Do you have NBU 5.1 or 6.0? The NBU client is currently version 6.0MP2 and has not been upgraded - this is the same client which successfully restores Storage Group 1.

Is this the first time you tired to restore SG 2, 3, or 4?  Or, you have successfully restored SG 2~ 4 before on this Exchange server?   This is an interesting question. It turns out that nobody has been sucessful restoring from Storage Groups 2,3, or 4 as these are new Storage Groups created a few months ago (and we haven't needed to restore before) - I have confirmed that the backups are completing successfully and when I catalogue the tape I can see the sizes of the backed up storage groups are correct.

Hope this helps you........

[J_H_Is_gone]

there are some things I do that are not in that doc so I will just do a quick list of them.

in the recovery storage group- delete the mail store

on a drive on the server you should have another dir that has the log files in it. delete this (.edb)

go back to the recovery storage group

right click and ADD a new one,  choose the one you want to restore like SG1-3

this could create the new mail store under the recovery storage group.

now try the restore.

[E2K3]

Ok, So this is a new procedure I have never followed before so I gave it ago.....still no difference, getting the same error message when trying to restore SG2, 3, and 4 and SG1 restores successfully.

[sdo]

Exchange circular logging?

Try searching for "exchange circular logging" here:

http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/support/knowledge_base_sli.jsp?pid=15143

...and then clicking in the right on "Technical Article".

[E2K3]

We have not Exchange circular logging enabled 

But checking the backup logs the backups complete successfully with no errors reported in the logs.

Also, when I go to the NBU GUI and check the log files on the tapes they are at the sizes we would expect.

[J_H_Is_gone]

When you do the restore you are telling it to go to the Restore Storage Group correct?

because I do not see the "RENAME" line in your output.

11:58:47 (775222.001) TAR - Microsoft Information Store:\Storage Group 4\Mailbox Store SG4-4
11:58:47 (775222.001) MNR - The file was renamed to the following:
11:58:47 (775222.001) UTF - Microsoft Information Store:\Recovery Storage Group\Mailbox Store SG4-4
11:58:47 (775222.001) (775222.001) INF - Restoring Exchange ESE object N:\EXCHSRVR\MDBDATA\StorageGroup4\Mailbox Store SG4-4.edb

[E2K3]

Ok...I found out the reason.

I was recovering to a recovery storage group called "Recovery Storage Group 1" - I had to remove this and create a new recovery storage group using the exact name of the storage group I want to restore.

Veritas cannot explain why "Recovery Storage Group 1" works for "Storage Group 1"; also "Recovery Storage Group 2" does not work for "Storage Group 2" the RSG must be called "Storage Group 2".

Thanks everyone who contributed.

Good Luck

[CY]

Thanks for sharing!