Brainlitter » How to replay Exchange 2003 Transaction Logs

How to replay Exchange 2003 Transaction Logs

It’s always at the darkest hour for a client that I’m trying to find this info, so I’m posting it here for me and you.
 
Once you’ve restored Exchange from a backup, you will likely (if you can) want to restore it to the point of failure and that means restoring the transaction logs.  I’m assuming here that you don’t have circular logging turned on, as you can kiss this option goodbye if you do.
 
So here it is… how to replay your Exchange 2003 Transaction Logs

The following information pertains to recovering an Exchange database restored from NTBackup, replaying transaction log files may be different for other backup applications.

When a database is restored from backup media, it is in what is referred to as an inconsistent state where the database and log files are not synched together. To fully recover your Exchange data after you restore the database, you must replay the transaction logs to bring the database up-to-date or make it consistent.

Hard recovery is the process that brings a restored database back to a consistent state. To initiate hard recovery, you can select the Last Restore Set check box in NTBackup when you restore your last database or you can use the Eseutil /cc command.

It is recommended that you run only one instance of Eseutil /cc at a time, even if you restore multiple databases concurrently.

To run Eseutil /cc:

  1. After the last backup has been restored and you want to initiate a hard recovery, open a Command Prompt window.
  2. Find the folder where the Restore.env file is located.
  3. Type eseutil /cc. Do not use any other parameters.
  4. When the transaction logs finish replaying successfully, the message, “Operation completed successfully” appears.

Eseutil performs the same function as the Last Restore Set check box. Use all other Eseutil /cc switches with extreme caution.