Exchange 2010 and Symantec Backup Exec Restore Scenarios

Posted the July 22, 2011 by Jonas Andersson - 16 comments

Published: 2011-07-22
Updated: -
Version: 1.0

Here are some restore scenarios that I will show how to use with Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R3 together with Exchange native tools.

Restore single item/content

Mailbox view, delete of the latest email content.

The mail is now deleted.

Empty recycle bin as well.

Go into Symantec Backup Exec console and select “New Restore Job…”. It’s placed in the upper right.

Select the mailbox and content that should be restored.

Restore Job Activity overview..

When the restore job is completed, the Mail content is restored into the mailbox.

Restore mailbox into subfolder in another mailbox

Go into Symantec Backup Exec console and select “New Restore Job…”. It’s placed in the upper right.

Select the Database, including Logs.

Destination: type in \\Server03 (My Exchange server) and selecting to use a redirect using VSS to a path using the browse button.

Microsoft Exchange: deselecting “Automatically recreate user accounts and mailboxes”.

The restore job has started.

Browsing the path on the Exchange server, files are restored to the server.
Make sure both the edb and the log files are in the same folder, the job will be easier to complete then.

Directory browsing in “R:\RDB…”.

Check what state the database is in, using the command:
“eseutil /mh DB.edb“.
It says: State: Dirty shutdown.
This means we need to use eseutil to run a soft recovery using the log files together with the database so it will get into “Clean shutdown” state.

It’s time for the soft recovery using the command below:
“eseutil /R E01 /D”

Checking the state after the soft recovery using:
“eseutil /mh DB.edb”

Let’s create a Recovery Database by using:
“New-MailboxDatabase –Name RDB –Recovery –EdbFilePath ‘R:\RDB\Exchange Server\DB\DB.edb’ –LogFolderPath ‘R:\RDB\Exchange Server\DB’ –Server Server03”

It will prompt with a warning that the database state needs to be in Clean Shutdown state.
Mounting the database:
“Mount-Database –id RDB”

Checking which mailboxes that resides in the RDB database by using:
“Get-MailboxStatistics –Database RDB“.

Next step is to create a Restore Request using the RDB:
“New-MailboxRestoreRequest –SourceDatabase RDB –SourceStoreMailbox “Klas Andersson” –TargetMailbox “Klas.Andersson@target.local” –TargetRootFolder Recovery“.

To see what status the request has:
“Get-MailboxRestoreRequest | Get-MailboxRestoreRequestStatistics“.

Below is a picture from Outlook when the Request is completed.

Time for the clean up afterwards..

When the request is completed, remove it:
“Get-MailboxRestoreRequest | Remove-MailboxRestoreRequest“.

Dismounting the database:
“Dismount-Database RDB“.

Removing database using:
“Remove-MailboxDatabase RDB“.

If you want to restore a mailbox into another that doesn’t match the LegacyDN the switch “-AllowLegacyDNMismatch” needs to be used.
In my case I’m restoring the mailbox for Klas Andersson into Anette Andersson’s mailbox using the command below:
“New-MailboxRestoreRequest –SourceDatabase RDB –SourceStoreMailbox “Klas Andersson” –TargetMailbox “Anette.Andersson@target.local” –TargetRootFolder Recovery –AllowLegacyDNMismatch”.

Restore user and mailbox

If it happens that a user/mailbox is accidental deleted it can be easily recreated and restored by using Backup Exec.
First we remove the mailbox and the user account from EMC. The picture below shows that.