Applies to: Exchange Server 2013

Topic Last Modified: 2012-10-03

A recovery database (RDB) is a special kind of mailbox database that allows you to mount a restored mailbox database and extract data from the restored database as part of a recovery operation. After you've created an RDB, you can restore a mailbox database into the RDB by using your backup application (or if you have the database and its log files in the file system, by copying them to the RDB file structure). Then you can use the New-MailboxRestoreRequest cmdlet to extract data from the recovered database. After being extracted, the data can then be exported to a folder or merged into an existing mailbox. RDBs allow you to recover data from a backup or copy of a database without disrupting user access to current data.

For additional management tasks related to RDBs, see Recovery Databases.

What do you need to know before you begin?

  • Estimated time to complete this task: 1 minute, plus the time it takes to put the database into a clean shutdown state and to extract the data.

  • You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the "Mailbox recovery" entry in the Recipients Permissions topic.

  • An RDB must be created. For detailed steps, see Create a Recovery Database.

  • The database and log files containing the recovered data must be restored or copied into the RDB folder structure that was created when the RDB was created.

  • The database must be in a clean shutdown state. Because an RDB is an alternate restore location for all databases, all restored databases will be in a dirty shutdown state. You can use Eseutil /R to put the database in a clean shutdown state.

  • For information about keyboard shortcuts that may apply to the procedures in this topic, see Keyboard Shortcuts in the Exchange Admin Center.

Use the Shell to recover data using a recovery database

This example restores the source mailbox that has the MailboxGUID 1d20855f-fd54-4681-98e6-e249f7326ddd on mailbox database DB1 to the target mailbox with the alias Scott.

Copy Code
New-MailboxRestoreRequest -SouceDatabase DB1 -SourceStoreMailbox 1d20855f-fd54-4681-98e6-e249f7326ddd -TargetMailbox Scott

This example restores the content of the source mailbox that has the display name Scott Schnoll on mailbox database DB1 to the archive mailbox for scott@contoso.com.

Copy Code
New-MaiboxRestoreRequest -SourceDatabase DB1 -SourceStoreMailbox "Scott Schnoll" -TargetMailbox scott@contoso.com -TargetIsArchive

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see New-MailboxRestoreRequest.

How do you know this worked?

To verify that you have successfully recovered the mailbox data, open the target mailbox using Outlook or Outlook Web App and verify that the recovered data is present.

Tip:
Having problems? Ask for help in the Exchange forums. Visit the forums at: Exchange Server, Exchange Online, or Exchange Online Protection