Rebuilding the failed Mailbox server

Ok, at this point we have gotten a server failure in a Mailbox Server; we moved all affected users to a dial tone database located in another mailbox server. Now, we have time to start the recovery process of the old server. Now, we are going to recover the failed server in a new hardware using the same name and IP address.

First of all, let's locate the failed server into Active Directory Users and Computers, right-click on the failed server and click on Reset Account, as shown in Figure 09. Click Yes in the message dialog box that will come up.

Figure 09: Reseting the Exchange Server computer account in the Active Directory Users and Computers

Now, we have to set up a new server with the same name and IP address of the failed server. In the failed server we had only the mailbox server installed. Then we have to follow these procedures to deploy the new server:

• Install the Operation System

• Install the Service Pack and hot fixes

• Install the components to support the Mailbox Server

• Enable network COM+ access

• Internet Information Services

• World Wide Web Service

• .NET Framework 2.0 and update

• Windows PowerShell

• MMC 3.0 (This component comes built in with Windows Server2003 R2)

The next step will be the server recovery with the RecoverServer switch.  The following command can be utilized:  Setup.com /Mode:RecoverServer, as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Recovering the server through RecoverServer switch

We can visualize the server that we have just recovered and we can also see the Mailbox Database dismounted.

Figure 11: Listing the mailbox databases on the recovered servers

On the General Tab of the dismounted Mailbox Database, check the option called This database can be overwritten by a restore, as shown in figure 12.

Figure 12: Allow the database to be overwritten by a restore

Conclusion

In this second article we move on in our disaster recovery procedure using dial tone database, at this point we have all users connected to the dial tone database and we have rebuilt the failed mailbox server 01 and set up the database to accept the old mailbox database recover.