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SearchExchange: Recovering Exchange from .OST files

SearchExchange writes about a last-ditchattempt to restore a corrupted Exchange server from Outlook users' OSTfiles.Recently, I was recruited by a colleague to helphim recover Microsoft Exchange data from a failed hard drive. Unfortunatelyfor us, he had a corrupt backup. The failed drive contained the server'sprivate information store, so everyone's e-mail was gone and there wasno backup to restore. Luckily, we were able to devise another way to recoverthe data (only practical in small organizations). ...[W]e decided to start a fresh Exchange installation, load the service pack,create a few mailboxes, and then let the [Outlook] cache data repopulatethe mailboxes. It was a great plan, except for one minor detail -- Outlook2003's built-in self-destruct mechanism. In Notes/Domino,local NSFs are exactly the same as the server copies.  The one timeI ever had a mailbox corruption on a server, we copied my local mailfileback up to the server, and I was back up and running in a few minutes...fasterthan backup.  Nowadays, I'd just point to my cluster replica, andhave that copy be first choice to restore to the primary server, with localcopy as second choice.  Either way, a backup often is a second orthird choice in a Notes/Domino environment, and it would never go likethe Exchange scenario in this article. Link: SearchExchange:Recovering Exchange from .OST files>
Written by Ed Brill, Contributor
SearchExchange writes about a last-ditch attempt to restore a corrupted Exchange server from Outlook users' OST files.
Recently, I was recruited by a colleague to help him recover Microsoft Exchange data from a failed hard drive. Unfortunately for us, he had a corrupt backup. The failed drive contained the server's private information store, so everyone's e-mail was gone and there was no backup to restore. Luckily, we were able to devise another way to recover the data (only practical in small organizations). ...
[W]e decided to start a fresh Exchange installation, load the service pack, create a few mailboxes, and then let the [Outlook] cache data repopulate the mailboxes. It was a great plan, except for one minor detail -- Outlook 2003's built-in self-destruct mechanism.
In Notes/Domino, local NSFs are exactly the same as the server copies.  The one time I ever had a mailbox corruption on a server, we copied my local mailfile back up to the server, and I was back up and running in a few minutes...faster than backup.  Nowadays, I'd just point to my cluster replica, and have that copy be first choice to restore to the primary server, with local copy as second choice.  Either way, a backup often is a second or third choice in a Notes/Domino environment, and it would never go like the Exchange scenario in this article.

Link: SearchExchange: Recovering Exchange from .OST files >

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on November 3, 2005, 10:22am

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