Recover Exchange

Have you ever had have a situation where you need to just start over with your exchange server but don’t want to lose data? (OS corruption\ Hardware Failure\ too many undocumented changes that caused an outage)

Here are the “quick and easy steps to recover”

1. Stop the “Microsoft Exchange Information Store” service
2. Note the OS service pack level\patches\hotfixes
3. Copy or backup all your database files *.edb (if they are on a drive other than C you may not even have to do that)
4. Format the C: (that’s right format it, so if you have something else on it back it up)
5. Reinstall the OS and re-service pack it
6. Rejoin the domain using the same server name as before (this is critical)
7. install the exchange prerequisites.
   1. 2003
   2. 2007
   3. 2010
8. Reinstall using exchange media
   1. 2003 = setup /disasterrecovery
   2. 2007\2010 = setup /m:recoverserver
9. Copy or restore the exchange databases back to the original location
10. mount the databases
11. DONE! exchange should be back up and running!