How to recover emails from Microsoft Exchange when the database of Active Directory is corrupted

Question

The database of Active Directory is corrupted after a hardware failure. It was not possible to recover it. How to recover emails from Microsoft Exchange 2003?

Answer 1

Well in your situation I'm not sure and I've never tried this but you MIGHT be able to do this (emphasis on might):

1. Copy the contents of the Exchange database and transaction log folders to a safe location off of the server. Rebuild the server using the same computer name and ip address as before. Recreate the domain using the same FQDN and NETBIOS names as before.

2. Recreate all user accounts as before.

3. Install a fresh copy of Exchange. Make sure that the database and log file paths for Exchange are exactly as they were before. Make sure that the names of the Administrative Group and any storage groups, mailbox stores, and the public folder store are exactly as they were before.

4. Mark the Exchange databases as available to be restored and dismount the databases.

5. Stop all the Exchange services.

6. Copy the contents of the database and transaction log folders to a safe location.

7. Copy the contents of the old database and transaction log folders to the new server.

8. Reboot the server.

9. If the mailbox and public folder stores mount then you should be home free. You can then reconnect the mailboxes to the appropriate user accounts.

If this procedure doesn't work you can try the same thing with an additional step: Install Exchange a second time using the /disasterrecovery setup switch. This might allow you to "trick" Exchange into reinstalling using the new AD information with the old databases.

If al else fails then you're looking at buying a third party utility to extract the email from the original database files. This is likely to be pretty expensive.

---

I think I've covered everything, and I'm doubtful that this will work, so my suggestion would be to wait until others chime in on your question.