If a disaster occurs and your entire Exchange server fails, you
must perform a full recovery to restore Exchange data. A full
recovery includes reinstalling Windows 2000, restoring your system
drive, recovering your system state, running Exchange in disaster
recovery mode, and recovering databases. Before reinstalling
Windows, make sure you have reviewed the requirements for disaster recovery,
and the recovery
guidelines.
To reinstall Windows 2000:
Run Windows 2000 Setup. During Setup, choose the following
options:
Install Windows 2000 as a stand-alone server.
Install the same version of Windows 2000 that was previously
installed. For example, you may not have just installed Windows
2000 Server, you may have installed Advanced Server or Data Center
Server.
Install the operating system to the same drive and paths to
which it was previously installed. If you need to, configure drives
to match the previous logical drive configuration.
Use the same server name as the original Exchange server.
Select all of the same components installed on the original
server.
Do not rejoin the domain. Leave the server in a Workgroup. You
can leave the server in a workgroup because after installing
Windows, you will restore the System State which will place the
server in the correct domain.
Important
After reinstalling the correct version of Windows 2000, re-install
any service packs or hotfixes that were previously installed.