Now, let’s find out how to restore mailboxes from the old server. You can restore in normal method since we have Recovery Storage Group (How to create it is in previous blog). You should only recover mailboxes now and it will be redirected automatically to Recovery Storage Group. Only after restoring the mailboxes you should restore public folders or log files to avoid unnecessary conflict issues.
After the recovery process is completed, you should move user’s data where it will be accessible to user. To achieve this task, you will have to bring down exchange server for a bit since you should dismount and swap databases. Follow the below steps to perform the task,
- First, you should navigate to location where the recovery storage group is stored using windows explorer. Now, create a folder called Save_Original and dismount the information store database using Exchange System Manager.
- After that, you need to move the recovery storage group’s .EDB and .STM files to the Save_Original folder.
- Now, you should delete the recovery storage group’s database by going back into the Exchange System Manager. You need to do this to delete logical database structure.
- Now, open directory containing the active information store using windows explorer. Make a new folder called SaveDialTone and copy the .EDB and the .STM files associated with the information store to newly created SaveDialTone folder.
- Now, you should change the path for information store to point at recovery storage group’s database path using Exchange System Manager.
- Move all the files inside Save_Original folder to recovery storage group path using windows explorer.
- Now, open Exchange System Manager and right-click on the information store to verify that all of the information is correct.
- Once you make sure it is correct, select the Database tab & select This Database Can Be Overwritten By A Restore check box and select OK
Now it’s time to mount the information store. The users should have access to all of their old messages, but will not have access to any messages that have accumulated since they began using the temporary information store.
- Now, open folder where SaveDialTone folder is located and create a folder called DialTone using windows explorer. Dialtone and SaveDialTone folders should be located at same level.
- Open Exchange System Manager and right-click on Recovery Storage Group and select Add Database to Recover command from the resulting shortcut menu.
- Now, you should select the information store that you are working on and select OK. This will open a properties sheet where you should enter the path to the DialTone folder and select OK.
- Now you should move files from SaveDialTone folder to DialTone folder using windows explorer. Only thing left now is to mount the recovery storage group database and restore process is complete.