Crucial way to Perform Exchange Mailbox Recovery after Facing an Error Message

It actually gets difficult for online users when EDB file gets corrupt in the MS Exchange Server, making it hectic for user to access data like notes, contacts, email, calendars, etc. Such situation demands an urgent Exchange Recovery procedure, and best way to do that is taking help of a exchange mailbox recovery application.
Facing any sort of file error is always bad, and the same rule applies when we talk about EDB file corruption. In fact, it actually gets difficult for online users when EDB file gets corrupt in the MS Exchange Server. It makes it hectic for user to access data like notes, contacts, email, calendars, etc. In such a scenario, the Outlook file becomes unusable. This situation demands an urgent Exchange Recovery procedure.

But the point that one must note is that Exchange Recovery certainly requires a good technical brainstorming as the recovery method goes through a diverse complex steps while restoring corrupt data from the MS Exchange Server. Consequently, there is a requirement of a professional tool that could hold the accountability in recovering EDB by converting the files to PST format. To deal with such issues, some recommend usage of an integrated tool named Eseutil.exe, which guarantees successful recovery of files from the Exchange Server. However, situation could get different when one got to restore corrupted EDB files from Exchange Server. To make it clearer, consider a situation where you got to face an error given below -

“550 5.7.1 Unable to relay”

Suppose you got to face a situation where a specific mail account on Exchange bans any act of sending mails to a particular domain and you come across an error message ˜550 5.7.1 Unable to relay”.

Now, the moment, you face any such error message; your entire procedure of sending mails to address outside the domain of your organization gets hindered.

Cause for Error

This error is an indication stating that outgoing mail server is not in an appropriate position to distinguish you and thus restrict you from sending mails. Usually, as there is no recipient policy available for expected domain in your organization, you get to view such an error message.

Nevertheless, you can overcome from this issue by opting a pretty simple process:

1.Open the Exchange System Manager
2.Go in Administrative Groups -> Administrative group name -> Server -> Server name -> Protocols -> SMTP
3.Right click on Default SMTP Virtual Server -> properties
4.Contact tab -> Relay button
5.Opt for "only the list bellow" and after that specify your domain or IPs you desire to allow the relay.
6.Check the "Allow all computers which successfully authenticate to relay, regardless of the list above" checkbox.

Chances are high that you may fix the issue, but in case you are not able to do so then to overcome such problem repair Exchange database file with the help of a professional exchange mailbox recovery application. The software corrupted Exchange Server database and restores the individual mailboxes as *.pst files. Such application facilitates an easy and safe mailbox restoration with an interactive user interface. The tool facilitates with various functionalities and by applying different functionalities of exchange mailbox recovery application, you can easily restore mailboxes from inaccessible or corrupt exchange database. The complete procedure involves repairing and restoring the corrupt files and their conversion from EDB to PST file format. Best aspect about such utility is its availability in free trial version. To know more about software visit here :- http://www.recoveryfix.com/exchange-server-recovery.html

How to restore an individual Exchange Mailbox using Exchange Recovery Storage Group?

Recovery Storage Group (RSG) is a specialized storage group in Exchange 2003 that helps Exchange administrators in restoring a single mailbox or a single item from a backup using the simplest backup software like Ntbackup. Using RSG feature, Exchange administrators can mount a second copy of a mailbox database (a mailbox database restored from backup) to extract data from one or more mailboxes in the respective databases without affecting the production databases. While mounting a copy of a mailbox database to RSG, administrators can extract data from the mailbox and can then merge it with another mailbox located in a mailbox database in a production Storage Group. Also, the data can be extracted and copied to a specific folder in another mailbox.
After restoring a mailbox store to the recovery storage group, use Exmerge.exe tool to move the recovered mailbox data from the recovery storage group to the regular storage group. Users can execute following Exchange Management Shell commands in order to merge a recovered mailbox using the RSG:
  1. Exchange Management Shell command to create a new RSG, in case an RSG does not exist already:

new-storagegroup –Server <Server_Name> -LogFolderPath <path_to_Logfiles> -Name <RSG_Name> -SystemFolderPath <Database_Path> -Recovery

  1. Exchange Management Shell command to add a recovery database to the RSG:

new-mailboxdatabase –mailboxdatabasetorecover <Database_Name> -storagegroup <Server_Name>\<RSG_Name> -EDBFilePath <Database_Path>

  1. Exchange Management Shell command to set the recovery database to allow overwriting:

Set-mailboxdatabase –identity <Server_Name>\<RSG_Name>\<Database_Name> -AllowFileRestore:$True

  1. Exchange Management Shell command to mount the recovery database:

mount-database –identity <Server_Name>\RSG_Name>\<Database_Name>

  1. Exchange Management Shell command to recover the mailbox of an existing user to an existing mailbox:

Restore-mailbox –identity <User_name> -rsgdatabase <Server_Name>\<RSG_Name>\<Database_Name>

A few examples of Exchange Management Shell commands to recover user data from an RSG:
  1. Exchange Management Shell command to recover a mailbox from RSG database to currently used mailbox ‘Alex Brown’:

Restore-Mailbox –identity ‘Alex Brown’ –RSGDatabase ‘RSG\mailbox database’

  1. Exchange Management Shell command to recover all mailboxes in the RSG to their respective active mailboxes:

Get-MailboxStatistics –database ‘RSG\Mailbox Database’ | restore-mailbox

  1. Exchange Management Shell command to restore a mailbox in an RSG into different active mailbox:

Restore-Mailbox –RSGMailbox ‘Alex Brown’ –RSGDatabase ‘RSG\Mailbox Database’ –id ‘Michael Clarke’ –TargetFolder ‘ABrown Email’

  1. Exchange Management Shell command to recover end-user data between two dates:

Restore-Mailbox –RSGMailbox ‘Alex Brown’ –RSGDatabase ‘RSG\Mailbox Database’ –id ‘Michael Clarke’ –TargetFolder ‘ABrown Email’ –StartDate ‘01/12/13’ –EndDate ‘18/12/13’

Restrictions while using Recovery Storage Groups in Exchange Server 2007:
  • The Server on which the data originated must belong to the same Active Directory forest as the Server that you are using to recover the data.
  • Recovery Storage Groups could only be used to recover mailbox data; they can’t be used to recover public folder data.
  • Even though Exchange Server 2007 allows creating upto 50 different stores per Server, but only one Recovery Storage Group could be created.


On corruption, damaging, accidental deletion or inaccessibility of Exchange mailbox data, Exchange administrators look for a third-party solution to overcome the issues generated while accessing Exchange data. Give RecoveryFix for Exchange Server a try, a professional tool to deal with Exchange Server disasters. A full support to MS Exchange Server 5.0, MS Exchange Server 5.5, MS Exchange Server 2000, MS Exchange Server 2003, MS Exchange Server 2007, MS Exchange Server 2010, and MS Exchange Server 2013 makes it entirely different among other solutions available in the market nowadays for Exchange mailbox recovery. For more detail visit http://www.recoveryfix.com/exchange-server-recovery.html

How to restore an individual Exchange Mailbox using Windows Server Backup?

Follow the below given steps in order to restore an individual mailbox items for Exchange Server 2010 using Windows Server Backup:
  1. Backing up Exchange Server 2010 mailbox database: Using Windows Server Backup to backup and restore a mailbox database for Exchange Server 2010 includes three steps:
    a. Installing Windows Server Backup on Windows Server 2008 R2: Windows Server Backup is not
         installed by default and needs to be installed initially.
    b. Backing up an Exchange 2010 mailbox database: From the Windows Server Backup window, 
        click on Backup Once:

Since there is no existing scheduled backup on this Server, so select Different options.Click Next to proceed.














Select Custom as Backup Configuration to choose custom volumes, files for backup:











Now, select the volumes to be backed up. Click Add Items to open the selection dialog. Click OK to close the dialog.










Click Advanced Settings button:
















Select VSS Settings tab and then select VSS full Backup option. Click OK and then Next to continue.










Now, the backup can be stored on either a local drive or a remote network share. Let’s backup to a local drive:










Select the volume to back up the Exchange 2010 mailbox database to. A volume that is a part of the backup selections list can’t be chosen. Click Next to proceed.











Click Backup to initiate the backup process:



















The time taken to backup depends on the size of the mailbox database:













On completion of the backup process, click Close button.

User can even verify the successful backup. User can also click on View Details to see detailed information.

  c. Restoring an Exchange 2010 Mailbox database:
To perform this, the mailbox database has been dismounted and database file has been deleted. The Exchange Server is unable to mount the database due to the missing file.

The mailbox database needs to be recovered from the previous backup. Firstly, mark the mailbox database as restorable. In Exchange Management Console, open the properties of mailbox database:












Select Maintenance tab and check “This database can be overwritten by a restore”.













Launch Windows Server Backup, then in Actions pane click Recover to initiate the Recovery Wizard:















In this case, the previous backup is stored on the local Server. Click Next to proceed.










Select the backup date and time to restore from, click Next to proceed.













Select Applications as the Recovery Type for restoring Exchange Server 2010 mailbox database. Click Next to proceed.











Select Exchange as the Application to recover, and check “Do not perform a roll-forward recovery of the application databases”. Click Next to proceed.












Select “Recover to original location” option. Click Recover to begin the recovery.









The restoration time entirely depends on the size of the mailbox database being recovered. On successful completion of restoration, click Close.

2. Restoring Exchange Server 2010 mailbox database to an alternate location: To restore Exchange Server 2010 mailbox database to an alternate location, select “Recover to another location” option and enter path of a folder different from live mailbox database or log files. Click Next.











Click Recover to initiate the restoration. On successful completion of restoration, click Close to terminate the Recovery Wizard.

3. Bringing the restored database to a clean shutdown state with ESEUtil:
The restored database file remains in a “dirty shutdown” state. Execute the ESEUtil command in recovery mode to bring the database into a “clean shutdown” state. In case, the database still remains in dirty shutdown state, repair the database using ESEUtil/p command.

     4. Creating an Exchange Server 2010 Recovery Database:
Launch Exchange Management Shell Execute New-MailboxDatabase cmdlet having following parameters:
  • -Recovery:$true (specifies that the database will be a Recovery Database)
  • -EdbFilePath (the path to the restored mailbox database file)
  • -LogFolderPath (the path to be used for transaction log files, which must be an empty folder)
  • -Server (the server that the recovery is being performed on)
     5. Restoring mailbox items from a recovery database:


With the recovery database mounted, the mailbox items can be restored easily. The available items could be restored by looking at the mailbox statistics for the recovery database. Moreover, the mailbox items could be restored into a sub-folder of the existing mailbox as well. The restored items gets visible in the mailbox.

A number of third-party tools are available in the market nowadays for accurate and flawless Exchange mailbox recovery. RecoveryFix for Exchange Server is a professional and advanced Exchange mailbox recovery software that assures accurate recovery of mailbox data from MS Exchange Server 5.0, MS Exchange Server 5.5, MS Exchange Server 2000, MS Exchange Server 2003, MS Exchange Server 2007, MS Exchange Server 2010, and MS Exchange Server 2013. Moreover, three modes to recover Exchange data – Automatic Analyze and Recover, Advance Scan, and Rebuild Corrupted Database assure accurate recovery of Exchange mailbox data. For more detail visit http://www.recoveryfix.com/exchange-server-recovery.html