Greetings,
I am having to do a full restore of w2k3 sbs server including exchange, with BUE 11d. I have followed some articles and support forums, but everything I have read so far has holes in it.
First, we lost 2 drives in the RAID 5, so full restore is necessary. We have to restore Exchange but not ms sql.
I have installed the baseline sbs2k3, and stopped. I have not installed MS Exchange, or run any of the SBS setup.
I renamed the computer to match the original name before crash, and hit the "more" button in computer properties, and set the FQDN of the server before crash.
1.) My understanding is to then boot to directory services restore mode, and restore shadow copy components, along with the full C:, but leaving out the exchsvr directory c:\program files\exchsvr
My assumption here is that I should not select anything related to the exchange information stores. Is this correct?
2.) Next, I face the requirement that the service packs and hotfixes be the same on the target computer as it was before diaster. All I know is it was service pack 1 or above. Having to test each service pack with a restore is time consuming enough, but then to have to know what hotfixes were installed, seems excessive if not straight out impossible. The amount of possible combinations for service packs and hotfixes is astronomical in terms of time, especially considering usually the improper restore bricks the entire new install, requiring a complete reinstall for the next test of combinations.
There has to be a good way around this when you do not have a record of it, does anyone know what that is?