Restoring Exchange Server 5.5

Disaster recovery is a non-trivial activity, I would suggest reading:http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/exchange/technote/edrv3p1.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/exchange/technote/edrv3p2.asp

I know there're long but thay are worth reading.
General hint, look in the system event log for errors at start, then hit the MS Technet site and see if that gives a specific cause.

If you have more specific information like Exchange server is Memeber server of DC, what directory have you restored DB or logs or both it may help.

I have never had any success restoring exchange when it was not backed up proerly. If you have backed it up properly than you can reload exchange and restore it from backup. Microsoft does have some good technet articles. There is one on resoring exchange, I recommend you read it. Sorry I could not tell you how to restore it the way you have it, it just won't work. Again if you backed the exchange up properly it will take no time at all the restore following the Microsoft reccomended method. Itdoes work.

Answer 1 is correct. After you copy the databases to the new install, start all the Exchange services that will start, and run isinteg -patch on the private and public information stores. After you can start the information store service, don't forget to select "all inconsistencies" when you run the consistency adjuster.

If all else fails Microsoft support is a little pricy ($249 US) for Exchange support. But after banging my head for 4 or 5 hours trying to get my Exchange server back up after I restored, the 2 hours I spent on the phone with 2 Microsoft Senior TechSupport reps was well worth the price. They won't gaurentee that they can get it back up, but they sure try alot of things and for me it worked.

a few basic questions: did you stop the exchange service when you made the ghost image? can the software you used read files with locks on them as well as all other open files? if the answer to these questions is no, than you are out of luck. i went thrugh the same thing, and tried all the tricks that were forthcomming. i even tried MS tech support. after 2 weeks of working, nothing worked. if it is backed up properly, then you can usely restore it. but exchange is verry finicy, and you won't get anything back if you dont. even with the reading of open and locked files. it only works sometimes.
sorry,
-juan

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