Recipe11.4.Restoring One or More Databases to the Same Server

Recipe 11.4. Restoring One or More Databases to the Same Server

Problem

You need to restore one or more databases that were individually backed up from backup media or files.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

If the database is currently mounted:
1. Launch Exchange System Manager.
2. Navigate to the appropriate server and storage group.
3. Right-click the database to be restored and use the Dismount Store command. Confirm the command when prompted.
Launch the Windows Backup utility (Ntbackup.exe) and ensure that it is in Advanced mode.
Click the Restore tab.
In the left Ntbackup pane, find the backup media or file that contains the database copy you want to restore, then select it.

Having a useful description to search for is really handy at this point, so you should get into the habit of providing meaningful descriptions and .bkf file filenames when you create backups.
In the right Ntbackup pane, select the specific database that you want to restore.
Navigate down to the specific storage group that contains the mailbox store that you are going to restore and mark its checkbox, then click Start Restore.
The Restoring Database Store dialog box will appear. Select the name of the server you're restoring to. In this case, you're using the local server, which will already be selected by default. Next, enter a path for the location of the log and patch files. Ntbackup will put the files it restores here until it's ready to remount the restored database. Make sure that the directory you specify is on a volume with enough free space to hold the data you're restoring.
If the backup you're restoring is a full backup with no further backups after it, or the last backup in a series of differential or incremental backups, check the Last Restore Set and Mount Database After Restore options. If you still have to restore other backups after this one, leave both of those checkboxes blank.
Click OK.
If the Enter Backup File Name dialog box appears, fill in the name of the backup file you're restoring from, then click OK.
The Restore Progress dialog box appears. If any errors occur, you'll see them; when the restore finishes, you can dismiss the dialog with the Close button or view a detailed report of the restore with the Report button.
If you are restoring additional databases or if there are additional backup sets to restore, repeat steps 4 through 11 for each one. When you're restoring the last database, be sure to select the Last Restore Set and Mount Database After Restore checkboxes in step 8. The information store won't play back the transaction logs or remount the new database unless you do this.
Launch ESM and verify that the databases have been mounted properly (or mount them yourself if you didn't check the Mount Database After Restore checkbox).
Use ESM, Outlook Web Access, or Outlook to verify that the mailboxes or public folders are present and that the contents of the mailboxes are correct.
Use Event Viewer to verify that the databases have been cleanly mounted.

Discussion

When you do an online restore of a single database, the Exchange information store doesn't automatically mount the database unless you tell it to. Unless all transaction logs are present, the mount will fail anyway, so Exchange doesn't attempt the mount until you specify that all logs have been restored. This is a feature, not a bug. If you have to restore more than one database from the same storage group, or if you're restoring incremental or differential backups after restoring a full backup, those backups will contain logs that are necessary to restore the databases to their original states.

As a bonus, after restoring a database, you can check its integrity or repair it using the Isinteg and Eseutil tools, as described in Chapter 6. Depending on your backup subsystem, and how often you perform backups, it may actually be faster to restore a backup and play back logs to recover it to the latest possible state than to use Eseutil and/or Isinteg to try to fix the database in situ. Of course, you'll have to be quite familiar with your recovery procedures and capabilities before you can make this determination.