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Exchange: Recovery Storage Group

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As you might, or not, be aware off there is no item level based recovery in Exchange that is natively supported by Microsoft. So to perform recoveries we need the recovery storage group (captain obvious). The purpose of this is to mount the database you want to recover from on the Exchange server and use exmerge to merge the data you are recovering into the active database. An RSG will not be accessible to users and you can only create one at a time.

Exchange 2003:

1. Open Exchange system manager
2. Drill down to the server you want to recover to
3. Right click the server and select New > Recovery storage group
4. Specify the drive you have restored the database to. If possible use the same drive as the active database as this will improve performance quite a bit.
5. Click ok J
6. Right click the RSG and select “Add database to recover”
7. Select the right database you are going to recover.
8. Make sure that “This database can be overwritten by a restore” is checked (by default is should be)
9. Mount the database
10. Select the database in the recovery storage group, open the mailboxes container .
11. Select and right click the user(s) you want to restore.
12. Run Exchange task from the menu
13. Select the “recover mailbox data” task
14. Depending on your situation select either the Merge data or Copy data context
15. Schedule if necessary
16. Watch as your data is getting recovered.

Once this process is complete all data will be where it is supposed to be once more!

Exchange 2007:

1. Open up the Exchange management console
2. Go to the tools subset and open the Database Recovery Management tool
3. Select the storage group you want to link to the RSG
4. Double check the information presented in the next screen and click the Create the recovery storage group.
5. By default the RSG will be linked to the following folder: C:\program files\microsoft\exchange server\mailbox\<storage group>\RSGxxxxxxxxxx
6. Recover files to the RSG folder
7. Once recovered g o to the recovery storage group management tool and slect to mount the database.
8. Once mounted, go back to the task center and select Merge or copy mailbox contents
9. Make sure the proper database is selected and click on the gather merge information.
10. If you are dealing with a dial tone database click the “Swap database configurations” checkmark. If not, just click next
11. Click the Perform Pre-merge task
12. Select the mailboxes you wish to recover and let ExTRA do its thing.
13. Once the process is completed use ExTRA to dismount and remove the recovery storage group. Once that has been done you manually can remove the files in the RSGxxxxxxxx folder.

And that is it!

Exchange 2010:

1. Open the exchange management shell

2. Type in the following:

a. New-mailboxdatabase “name” –server “servername” –recovery:$true –edbfilepath “path to restored edb file”

b. Mount-database “name of DB you just created”

c. Get-mailboxstatistics –database “name of restored database”

d. New-mailboxrestorerequest –sourcedatabase “name of recovery database” –sourcestoremailbox “Username” –targetmailbox “emailaddress of target mailbox”

That will create a new recovery request. You can view the state of the request by using:

Get- MailboxRestoreRequest

Once completed, remove the request with

Get- MailboxRestoreRequest –status completed | remove-MailboxRestoreRequest

And that is it!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Great post on RSG (Recovery Storage Group) but you can make the entire procedure much easier and simplified by using this tool,http://www.recovery-tools.org/exchange-server-edb/

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Recover exchange databases with the aid of exchange recovery Make use of www.exchangeserver.recoverytoolbox.com

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Very informative article, it explanation that step by step procedures to recover storage group. I found the automate tool fromhttp://www.lepide.com/exchange-manager/ that resolves the problem of maintaining recovery server to extract and restore selected or required items from the available backup and recovers crashed folders or items in Exchange Server .

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Nice post Marc, but Kernel for Exchange Server Recovery Software which i recently used worked perfectly for the same cause. I recommend it to all. Have a look herehttp://www.exchangedatabaserecovery.edbtopstfile.net

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    EDB files of exchange Server have been damaged or corrupted then due to EDB file corruption, all outlook mailboxes on exchange network also become corrupt or inaccessible. To get rid of from this situation You should try to use a perfect professional application like for exchange edb to pst converter Tool.

    More Info:- http://www.tools4recovery.com/exchange-edb-recovery.html

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Good Article explain all version of recovery storage and DB in single post

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The same procedure can be applied for Exchange 2013 server also

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Awesome post but i had automate whole process using a product: www.pcvita.com/edb-converter.html

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    If you are incapable to recover Exchange EDB file data then you can try exchange EDB recovery software to instantly recover your EDB file data from corrupt or ruined Exchange database file.

    Visit for this web site:- http://www.recoverfilesdownload.com/exchange-edb-recovery.html

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Cool Procedure... I appreciate the effort of Marc Dekeyser!!! Due to failure of Exchange expretise, i need to called up an automated application that is PCVITA EDB CONVERTER. It did recovery of exchange mailboxes and exporting of mailboxes into pst format.

  • Anonymous
    December 11, 2012
    Hi, Thanks for Introducing an option to recover mailbox from exchange server 2003, 2007 and 2010 through Recovery Storage Group. I have found same application which is capable to restore mailbox data from different exchange versions i.e. Stellar Phoenix Exchange Server Recovery.

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2012
    Hi Marshal! There are indeed 3rd party products that will restore mailbox data but it is always important to figure out wether they are automating the process of creating RSG and merging data or actually hacking in to the database. That last one can cause quite a bit of problems...

  • Anonymous
    December 19, 2012
    Hi Marc, Yes, I agree with your comment, there are automate process for creating Restore Group Storage and merging the data, But I have seen my client issue that they have tried to recover your exchange data by RGS and some have recovered successful and some unsuccessful, So, I conclude that RGS does not help in all condition. So in that situation you can try Stellar Phoenix Software for recover your mailbox data from Exchange Server.

  • Anonymous
    December 19, 2012
    Marshal, Fair enough. Though I would find it strange that if a database has been repaired and mounted that you would be unable to recover data that a 3rd party could. Only reason I could think of is that the piece of software you talk about would import items which are corrupt or unsupported (seeing you are mentioning different exchange versions...). If that latter is the case you might want to be careful as you will receive no support from Microsoft if your DB dies.

  • Anonymous
    February 19, 2014
    Good explanation !! thanks for putting up the useful information. Recently, we faced corruption issue in our Exchange databases. After a lot of efforts, we repaired and rebuilt it with the help of a third party tool: http://www.recover-computerdata.com/exchange-server-recovery.html Thanks again for this excellent post !! Rachel

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2014
    Try Exchange Recovery tool for recover of damaged file if it not work then you can try any other professional Exchange EDB Repair Tool
    Free download click http://repaircorruptededbfile.blogspot.com

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2014

    Exchange issues without facing any interference. It is the relevant and result-oriented solution to get back crucial Exchange database.

    Get More info: http://www.recoverydeletedfiles.com/exchange-server-edb-recovery.html

  • Anonymous
    November 13, 2014
    Exchange EDB Recovery is powerful tool to repair and restore inaccessible mailboxes of Exchange Server and repairs the database files of Exchange Server. It recovers EDB server mailboxes and imports them directly to Outlook and these files are used as PST files.

    More Info:- http://www.pcrecoveryutility.com/exchange-server-recovery.html

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2015
    Yes cool information delivered by the Article Author . I am also facing same situation in few months ago.http://securasoft.com/edb-to-pst/ by opening this url I got the solution of my problem. This tool extract and recover my Exchange server data to PST files.

  • Anonymous
    May 12, 2015
    I'm sick and tired with people constantly advertising their own products.
    This is best solution and FREE!!!

  • Anonymous
    March 01, 2016
    Many time when you try to access the exchange database file then it returns error and you are not able to access edb file then you need to resolve the issue immediately to avoid breakdown situation. To recover exchange database you need a exchange recovery tool that can recover and repair corrupted or deleted edb file. It is highly recomended that use only trusted software which ensure you that Meta property of data will not be changed, try this exchange recovery tool visit the link.

    Visit the Link: - http://www.edbtopstpro.com/exchange-recovery/