Restoring an Exchange Server 2013 Database

In a previous article I demonstrated how to restore Exchange Server 2013 databases using Windows Server Backup. In that scenario an entire database that had been lost needed to be recovered.

However in other recovery scenarios you may only want to recover one or several mailboxes, or even specific mailbox items, from a point in time without having to overwrite the entire database.

In Exchange Server 2013 we can do this with recovery databases, which operate basically the same as Exchange Server 2010 recovery databases. A recovery database allows us to mount a copy of a database on an Exchange server without having any impact on the live copy of that same database. In fact we can even use recovery databases to mount copies of databases from other servers within the same Exchange organization, thanks to database portability.

When a recovery database is mounted we can inspect it and restore items or mailboxes from it, but no clients can connect to it. So as the name suggests it can only be used for recovery purposes, not for active mailbox functionality.

Restoring an Exchange Server 2013 Database Using Windows Server Backup

Some backup applications have the capability to handle some or all of the process of creating a recovery database, restoring the database files, and extracting the desired mailboxes or items to a destination.

When using Windows Server Backup to perform a recovery you need to do pretty much all of the work yourself, so it is a good exercise for learning how to recovery Exchange 2013 databases.

In Windows Server Backup click Recover to start a new recovery.

Choose the location where the backup is stored. In this example my backups are stored on the same server.

Choose the backup date and time that you wish to restore.

When recovering entire databases we would normally choose “Applications” and restore every database that was backed up on the server. However when working with recovery databases we can chooseFiles and folders and only restore the specific database and log files we need.

Browse through the tree of available items and choose the database and log files you want to restore. I am restoring DB02 in this example. Note that restoring the database and logs will be two separate restore jobs if they are located in folders where you can’t select both at the same time.

Choose to restore to Another location, and select a folder that has enough free space to hold the restored data.

Confirm your selections and click Recover to begin the restore.

You can close the progress window if you like and the job will continue running in the background.

I’ve also run a second recovery job to restore the log files for DB02.

After you’ve completed your file restores the next step is making the database mountable.

Making the Restored Database Mountable

So far we’ve restored the database and transaction log files from a recent backup, but haven’t created the actual recovery database yet. If we created the recovery database right now, pointing it at the restored database and log files, and then tried to mount it, the database would fail to mount.

The reason for this is that the restored database is in a “dirty shutdown” state, which you can see by navigating to the restored database folder and running eseutil.exe.

I have abbreviated the output of the above command, but basically you are looking for the “State” shown in the command output.

So we need to get the database file to a “clean shutdown” state before it can be mounted.

In my example I have:

• A database file named DB02.edb in F:RecoveryDB
• Transaction logs with the filename prefix E01 in F:RecoveryLogs

So my eseutil “soft recovery” command line will be:

What that command means:

• /r for “recovery” mode
• E01 for the log file name  prefix
• /l (lower-case L) to specify the path to the log files
• /d to specify the path to the database file (but do not include the name of the file itself)

After the command has completed check the state of the database with eseutil /mh again.

If soft recovery does not bring the database to a clean shutdown state you may consider a hard recovery, which will make the database mountable but risks some data loss in the process.

When the database is in a clean shutdown state you can create the recovery database.

Creating a Recovery Database in Exchange Server 2013

Creating a recovery database is performed using the New-MailboxDatabase cmdlet with the -Recovery switch. Notice that in this example I am using the same database and log file locations as my restored data.

For more information about the warning to restart the Information Store service read this article. For a recovery database that you are only mounting for a short period of time an Information Store service restart may not be necessary.

Mount the recovery database.

Working with Recovery Databases

With the recovery database mounted you can use Get-MailboxStatistics to confirm that it contains mailbox database.

After you have confirmed that data is available for restore you can begin your mailbox or item recovery.