Restore Exchange 2003 public folder to alternate hardware

In some cases you need to recover old public folder data from Exchange while maintaning full production to all users. Public Folder stores isn't supported with recovery storage groups (RSG) within Exchange 2003 so an alternative is to use a separate hardware.

Below is a simplified todo list

1. Create a new server (physical or virtual) with appropriate disk space for the public folder
2. Promote the new server to a Domain Controller in a new forest and domain (use DNS on the same server)
3. Run Exchange 2003 forestprep
4. Run Exchange 2003 domainprep
5. Retrieve Exchange names from the running Exchange forest
1. Exchange organization name
2. Administrative group name (for the public folder store)
3. Storage group name
4. Public folder store name
6. Install Exchange 2003 on the new server
1. Specify the identical organization name
7. Patch the Exchange server to identical patch level
8. Change the Exchange organization to "native" level
9. Change name on the Administrative group
10. Change name on the Storage group for the Public Folder store
11. Change the name on the public folder store
12. Restart the Exchange server (to refresh Information store cache)
13. Dismount the PF store
14. Check "This database can be overwritten by a restore" on the Public Folder store
15. Restore the public folder database
1. Redirection is used within most backup products
2. Use the correct backupfile locally on the restore server if using NTBackup
16. Mount the database
17. Extract the data needed with a utility
1. Outlook can be used
2. PFDAVAdmin can be used

Links

• PFDAVAdmin download
• How to recover deleted public folders or items that are deleted from public folders by using the PFDAVAdmin tool