This article covers the key steps needed to recovery a failed/dead Exchange 2007 server.  This assumes the server cannot be recovered and you have a backup or replica of the EDB and optionally the TLOGs.  In using these steps, a replacement server will be created that will assume all of the roles of the failed server.

1)      Setup new server

a)      Same OS and server name as the failed system

b)      Same pre-requisites

c)      Same OS service pack and hotfixes

2)      Prep AD

a)      Reset the down computer account in the AD for the failed server

i)        Goto the OU where the account is and right click on it and choose “Reset Account”

3)      Prepare Server

a)      Join it to the AD

b)      Install Exchange 2007 pre-requisites

c)      Configure drive letters and folder path to be the same as they were on the failed server

4)      Install Exchange

a)      Run setup /m:RecoverServer

·         This will make sure all pre-requisites for all roles of the failed server are installed.

·         If you are restoring a HT role and have the ESE databases from the down server, add the /DoNotStartTransport switch to prevent the creation of a new ESE database.

X:\>setup /m:RecoverServer

 Welcome to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unattended Setup

 Preparing Exchange Setup

 

The following server roles will be recovered

    Hub Transport Role

    Client Access Role

    Unified Messaging Server Role

    Mailbox Role

    Management Tools

 

Performing Microsoft Exchange Server Prerequisite Check

 

    Hub Transport Role Checks        ......................... COMPLETED

    Client Access Role Checks        ......................... COMPLETED

    Unified Messaging Role Checks    ......................... FAILED

     This computer requires Windows Media Encoder update http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=67406.

      This computer requires Windows Media Audio Voice Codec update http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=67407.

 

    Mailbox Role Checks              ......................... COMPLETED

 

The Exchange Server Setup operation did not complete. For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com and enter the Error ID.

 

Exchange Server setup encountered an error.

b)      Install any missing pre-requisites

·         In the example above, some components requires for the UM role weren’t install

c)      Run setup /m:RecoverServer, again if needed

·         After the roles are checked, the binaries will be copied locally

Performing Microsoft Exchange Server Prerequisite Check

 

    Hub Transport Role Checks        ......................... COMPLETED

    Client Access Role Checks        ......................... COMPLETED

    Unified Messaging Role Checks    ......................... COMPLETED

    Mailbox Role Checks              ......................... COMPLETED

 

Configuring Microsoft Exchange Server

 

    Copying Exchange files           ......................... COMPLETED

    Hub Transport Server Role        ..                        8%

5)      Post Exchange Install

a)      Update server

i)        Install Service Pack, Update Roll-Ups and Hotfixes

·         Windows Update can be used to detect most Roll-Up and Hotfixes, if you installed any non-standard ones you will need to re-install them manually

b)      Restore HT .QUE file, if you have it

·         By default this file is stored in:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\data\Queue

c)      Restore any custom UM prompts for Auto Attendants

d)     Restore Mailbox SGs

i)        If you have the original EDB & LOG files, or an LCR or SCR replica, put them back in the exact same folder as they were before the failure

ii)      If restoring from backup make sure you select the option to replay any available transaction log

iii)    Open up EMC and Mount the databases

iv)    Open the properties for the database

(1)   Remove the “Do not mount this database at startup” checkbox from all databases

e)      Re-setup any SSL certificates

i)        Create request for new certificate, if you don’t have a backup of the certificate

·         If you exported your certificate, with the private key, before the server went down you can just import it

·         If you have a Digicert certificate they have an automated way to have your certificate reissued.

·         Even if you didn’t use Digicert they have a page you can use to form your PowerShell command to get a new certificate request file or CSR:
https://www.digicert.com/easy-csr/exchange2007.htm

ii)      Import and Enable the certificate

·         Again, Digicert has a page that shows you how:
http://www.digicert.com/ssl-certificate-installation-microsoft-unified-communications.htm

f)       Verify and reconfigure any Receive Connectors

·         Most of the settings are stored in the AD and recovered automatically

g)      Reconfigure any custom IIS & OWA settings

·         For example, I normally setup http://owa.domain.com, http://mail.domain.com, etc to redirect to https://mail.domain.com/owa

Using these five steps you can recover a failed server in under an hour, assuming the hardware is ready to go and your databases are not too large.  In most environments I recommend keeping the most recent backup files on disk, on a separate server, to allow for the quickest recovery time.  There are also some great third party products, like Mimosa NearPoint, that allow for very quick Exchange recovery to the point of failure without the need to build a new server with the same name as the failed server.  Also, solutions like NearPoint provide great archiving capabilities for Exchange that also allows users to access their mailbox data while Exchange is being recovered.