Exchange Server Cookbook

11.12. Performing Dial-Tone Recovery with Exchange Server 2003

Problem

You need to perform a lengthy database restoration or maintenance procedure, but you need your users to be able to use their mailboxes and basic messaging capabilities during the process. Short-term outage of stored data is acceptable; downtime is not.

Solution

This solution is longer than most and encompasses a large number of separate steps. Many of these individual steps are covered by other recipes in this book, while others are going to vary depending on your specific configuration and situation. Rather than attempt to repeat every single step here, we're going to break it down into separate tasks and point you to other recipes in the book where appropriate.

Remove the failing database

1. Launch the Exchange System Manager.

2. Navigate to the server and storage group that contain the failing mailbox database.

3. Right-click on the database and select Properties.

4. Switch to the Database tab and make note of the path and filenames of the database files (c:\path\<filename.edb> and c:\path\<filename.stm>).

5. Right-click on the database and select Dismount Store. This takes the database offline.

6. Using the command line or Windows Explorer, move (not copy) these database files to a secure location.

7. Delete the mailbox store (see Recipe 6.6).

Create the dial-tone database

1. From the Exchange System Manager, navigate to the server and storage group that contained the failing database.

2. Create a new mailbox store with the same filenames and ...