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How to move a database to another Exchange Server 2003

Article ID: 555603 - View products that this article applies to.

Author: Anderson Patricio MVP

SUMMARY

In some cases you need to move/restore a database as soon as possible, if you don't have hardware you might use this article to restore your database on another Exchange Server.

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The best way for disaster recovery is setup /disasterrecovery, but if you don't have a machine or time to do it you might use this article to help you to restore a database on another Exchange Server. This article explains changes in database location, attributes in user objects on Active Directory of affected users, and script on client machines.

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RESOLUTION

For this article you need another Exchange Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 or higher, we'll use names to the differentiate to crashed and second Exchange Server as follow:

Server1: Exchange server with catastrophic failure
Server2: a new or existent Exchange server with a different name of the crashed Exchange Server

To restore your database on another server, follow these steps:

Restore the database

Create a database with the same name as Server1 on Server2
Make a note of the location of .EDB and .STM files in that new database, in the Database Tab
After, you create, restore offline or online backup in Server2 in the same location as step 2
Right-click on new database and click Properties, in Database mark This database can overwritten by a restore
Mount the new database

Now, you are able to see all mailboxes in Exchange System Manager but they appear as disconnected.

Modify Exchange User attributes localized at Server1

Download and install ADModify. To do this, visit the following web site:
http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/ADModify
Run ADModify
On the startup screen, click Modify Existing User Attributes
Select you domain in the Domain List
Select a domain controller, in the Domain Controller List
In the Domain Tree List, expand you structure and select users of the Server1 MailboxStore and then click Add to List
In the new windows. Click the Exchange General tab.
Click to select Change homeMTA attribute to folowwing (type null to clear) check box and change for a value from the Server2
Click to select Change HomeMDB attribute to following (type null to clear) check box and change for a value from the server2
Click the E-mail Address Continued Tab.
Click to select Set msExchHomeServerName and change Org Name for the name of your Organization, on AG Name for the name of Administrative Group (example: First Administrative Group) and Server Name the name of the new server that hold mailboxstore (in this case Server2)
Observation: only if you user objects doesn't have the X500 address you continue to step 12. If you have a X500 address go to step 13.
Additional step: In the E-mail address Continued Tab, in the X.500 Adress formwrite you X.500 address (example: o=<Organization>/ou=<Fist Administrative Group>/cn=Recipients
Click Change > and after the changes, ADModify will show a small resume of all attributes with all modifications, already values and errors found.

Modify the Microsoft Outlook Client
It's a optional step, you can change the name of the server manually in each client to access Server1 (crashed server), but if you want to make it in a centralized way, you can do the steps bellow.
To create a script to change the server name in Microsoft Outlook Clients you need to use the Exchange Profile Update Tool (exprofre.exe) utility. It can be found in this web site: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=873214, and follow this steps on a test machine with profile configured to a Server1 (old exchange server):

Download the Exchange Profile Update Tool
Run and extract to a temporary directory (example: c:\temp)
Click Start, Run, type cmd and click OK
Type cd \temp
Type exprofre.exe /targetdc=<Global-Catalog-Server> /s /v /logfile=c:\temp\exprofre.log and press Enter
In the window will appear the result of operation, if you had success, now you can open normally Microsoft Outlook Client

For this step to work it is necessary to have a correct X500 address for user objects. Ps: If you use a X500 address for some message systems then you must validate the implication of these changes in your environment.

Troubleshooting a correct X500 address for Exprofre
Follow this steps to do a correct troubleshoot in a X500 address generation/modification in your users:

Validate the X500 path in the line Profile User at Exprofre log, that log is generated in de switch option /logfile= in the example above that log will be generated on c:\temp\exprofre.log
On the Domain Controller server, on command-line run it:
ldifde -r "(&(objectcategory=person)(objectclass=user)(proxyAddresses=X500:/o=<Exchange Organization>/ou=First Administrative Group/cn=Recipients/cn=<user-of-exprofre.log>))" -f validate-exprofre.txt
Where:
- <Exchange-Organization>: your Exchange organization
- <user-of-exprofre.log>: information found in log generated by exprofre utility

You must have your users be able to migrate in your validate-exprofre.txt, if you won't validate the X500 address.

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MORE INFORMATION

821829 How to move mailbox
873214 How to use Exprofre
271987 Overview of Exchange Server database architecture and database engine
867704 Disaster Recovery Guide of Exchange Server 2003

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Properties

Article ID: 555603 - Last Review: April 24, 2006 - Revision: 1.0

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Standard Edition
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server

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