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jmreicha
Asked: 2013-03-08 11:45:23 +0800 CST

Ridiculous Exchange database restore scenario

  • 772

Okay, so I have a little bit of a challenge for the Exchange pros.

I am looking for the mailbox database that a specific user was on... Before their account (and mailbox) was destroyed, around 7 months ago.

I have backups from this time period, however the way the backups are configured is to backup by database, and I can't seem to think of a way to find the database this user was on without guessing which database their data was living on. Anybody have thoughts on how to proceed?

TL;DR - User no longer with company, need to get files from backup but have no idea which mailbox database their files were stored on.

backup

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    It sounds like it might be worth it to perform a System State restore of a DC contemporaneous to the Exchange backups, find the user object, and examine the homeMDB attribute. That's going to give you the mailbox database name for sure, but you'll have to deal with putting up a DC "under glass" (don't connect it to your network at all after you perform the system state restore) to get at the data you're looking for.

    • 7

  2. This is a little exploitative.

    Use the free trial period on a paid archiving tool to extract and archive the email, then just search through it that way.

    At the end of the trial, just tell them you don't want to buy it.

    Exclaimer might be good for this, but bonus points for using some SaaS solution and having someone actually do all of that for you.

    If it saves 4 weeks of work...

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