Brainlitter » Recover a portion of list data from a SharePoint Site where only a full SQL Backup or Site Collection Backup Exists

Recover a portion of list data from a SharePoint Site where only a full SQL Backup or Site Collection Backup Exists

First off, don’t forget to check the good ole recycle bin and the 2nd stage recycle bin, when attempting to restore some list data, that may be all you need. But if that data is gone, and you aren’t using 3rd party tools like AvePoint, Idera, etc. that give you *granular* restore capabilities, you may find yourself in the situation of having to restore to a ‘2nd Web Application/Site Collection’, extracting the data and then bringing it back into your production SharePoint site.

 

The rest of this blog entry is based on a question I got today and being the lazy blogger I am, I’m going to share that same response here.

 

Title: how to restore a “portion” of SharePoint 2007 MOSS using STSADM

Question: An end user deleted information in an area of SharePoint (2007 MOSS). I know how to do a backup / restore of a complete store using STSADM. However, I’ve never done a restore of a portion of the site…. What are the steps to do this?

 

I responded with this…

  • What do you have to work with, by way of backups? Site collections? Content Databases, some 3rd party tool?
  • With fancy 3rd party tools, you’d use their GUI but I’m guessing that isn’t your answer 🙂
  • If you have SQL Databases, you could create a new web application, attach a copy of a previous content database to it (don’t overwrite your current one, restore as a different name!), then export the old data, save the list as a template, etc. Whatever method worked best.
  • If you have a backup of the site collection, you could restore that to an alternate web application (like the steps above) and then extract the bits you need.

 

They came back with this (just how lazy am I?)

 

Current backup setup:

  • Backupexec agent (for sharepoint)
  • stsadmin.exe (differential every 2hrs and a full first thing every morning)
  • SQL backup (nightly)


No easy way to restore like a “portion” of a list or site… I need to get a third party app….. what would you recommend?

 

And finally, I responded with this (hope it is helpful to others)

 

I haven’t used the Backup Exec Agent to restore, but I assume it probably gives you some ‘granular’ capabilities if it is any good at all. What are you able to see in there?

 

I’d go with the SQL Nightly backup.

 

  1. Create a new Web Application
  2. Create a site collection in it
  3. Remove its Content Database
  4. Restore a copy of the database (from previous night) as a NEW database with a NEW name
  5. Use: stsadm -o addcontentdb -url URL -databasename DatabaseName to attach this database to your new web application
  6. Login to it and see that you can see your old content
  7. Pick whatever method is necessary to get the contents out of there – I’ve blogged a number of approaches here: http://brainlitter.com/archive/2009/04/04/sharepoint-list-migration-approaches.aspx

 

As for recommended 3rd party apps, most of my SMB clients can’t afford them 🙂

 

  • But AvePoint, Idera, etc. come to mind that have products for that kind of granular backup and recovery.

 

And one more thing… Did this user delete a list/content or a site? If it was a list, or content from it (documents, etc.), you should still be able to find it in their Recycle Bin, and if you can’t find it there, check the Site (2nd) Recycle Bin, might still be kicking around. Sorry, should have started with that suggestion actually.