Restore old mailbox for user migrated to exchange 2007 / 2010
This is not a complete article with screenshots, I’ll try to create one pretty soon.
1. Restore the old exchange 2003 database and bring it to a clean shutdown following this article
2. Mount the store in Recovery storage group and ensure you can see the mailbox in disconnected state along with the other mailboxes.
3. Dismount the RSG database
4. Log in to Exchange management console, find the user and grant full mailbox permissions to the account you are logged in with
5. Now login to ADSIEdit and navigate to the location of the database where the user resides right now
6. Right click and go to properties and copy the attribute “distinguished name” to a notepad
7. Now navigate to the location of the RSG database in ADSIEdit
8. Right click and go to properties and copy the attribute “msexchOrigMDB” to a notepad (just a backup)
9. Paste the value you copied in step number 6 (distinguished name of the E2K7 database) to the “msexchOrigMDB” attribute of the RSG database
10. Wait for 5 minutes and mount the RSG database
Now run ExMerge and create a PST for the user and it will work flawless.
Explanation: “msexchOrigMDB” is the attribute which tells an RSG database “which database to recover”. It will be the “distinguished name” of the mailbox store which we are attempting to restore by default. Here, we edit this to point it to the mailbox store in exchange 2007 user where the user is residing right now.
The process is no different if the user was moved to different Exchange 2003 database
Please feel free to get in touch with us if you find my “explanation” is confusing. I am just an email away !!!
Ratish
October 31st, 2010 at 11:54 pm
Good One Ratish.
November 3rd, 2010 at 7:55 pm
[...] More info found here [...]
May 15th, 2011 at 11:38 pm
Hello
we migrated from exchange 2003 to 2010 and BE 2010 and everything have been working fine until a user requested a restore of mail that was deleted back in his mail box when it was on the 2003 box. on first try we create a RDB and redirected the mailbox to here but it started restoring all the mail into his current mailbox. what i want do is restore his mail box for tape and then open it using outlook 2007 and get the emails he requires.
any help pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. did you ever post that complete article with screen shots?
Grant
June 21st, 2011 at 6:39 pm
help restore old mail
July 9th, 2011 at 11:11 pm
Thanks you, keep up the good work
July 12th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Brilliant !!!
November 26th, 2011 at 8:46 am
Dear Ratish,
I would appreciate if you could tell me step by step procedure for restoring exchange 2003 mailbox as the user is migrated on Exchange 2007 server . Exchange 2003 server is intact and available on network
Thanks and Regards
Rehan
March 8th, 2012 at 6:16 pm
Maybe the answer is abvious but I dont dont want to assume. In step 1 you say to restore the database, my question is restore where? do i need to install a server with Exchange 2003 to restore there? at this point all my 2003 servers are gone, I only have 2010 servers in place.
thank you.
July 2nd, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Can this be done across domains? We have merged and acquired several domains into one new domain and the new 2010 exchange environment is on the new domain, while the recovery DB’s and exchange recovery group is on a legacy domain.