Re: Recovering Mail from BSOD Machine (Safe Mode works fine) by James
James
Tue Oct 19 10:06:40 CDT 2004
Hello
Thanks for your response again.
>> We use MS's backup utility
>> weekly just to deal with the transaction logs.
> So you selected the Exchange stores for online backup? Any backups of your
> data at all?
Only the .bfk file that MS Backup produced (which is two months old [a fact
that I haven't mentioned yet]. Damn sceduled task must have stopped working
or something. Other aspects of the server had been 'dissapearing' too; OWA
hadn't worked for months. Sould have seen the warning signs I guess.)
>> MS Backup will open up
>> in safe mode, but doesn't seem to want to play with the file that we
>> backup the c: drive to. Even if that did work, you would have to boot
>> into active directory restore mode to restore the system state, and
>> yes, you've guessed it - when I try and boot into active directory
>> restore mode I get the all-too-familiar BSOD!
>>
>> This problem, I feel, needs some of that thinking that's done outside
>> of the box ;-) How about I re-install windows 2000 server on the hard
>> drive without reformatting, and then pop on small business server
>> over the top too - would this overwite/clear the MTADATA and MDBData
>> folders et al? Could this work or am I dreaming?
>
> I would be a bit frightened of doing anything on this box. Do you have
> another server you can use?
Yup. Practically finished setting it up today. It is our new production
server. The old 'troubled' server is just sitting here, turned off, waiting
for a bright spark of inspiration to extract the exchange data.
> One expensive but very functional option for extracting PST files from
> (orphaned) .edb files is PowerControls from www.ontrack.com - with a
> non-SBS
> server I'd be less frightened, but if I were you I'd probably call PSS for
> help with this one. Will likely be a lot faster and more efficient than
> hacking around or relying on newsgroup posts from strange creepy people
> like
> myself. :-D
Transcoding the exchange data to pst's would be great! We are only talking
about 2 mailboxes and the public folders here, not and organisation the size
of MS. I could just add the pst's to outlook and copy the mail over to their
respectice locations - job done. However, the edb's aren't stricly orphaned
as they are surrounded by all the rest of their transaction logs - does this
make a differance to my options? I would rather not phone PSS (at a premium
cost) only to be told 'Prevention is better than a cure', plus I am not
bothered about doing a bit of 'leg work' in the groups and I am used to
being surrounded by strange creepy people (and so are they!) ;-)
> What's the exact BSOD error? Have you tried replacing your NIC? Unplugging
> any peripherals? If you can get the server operational, you'll be in a lot
> better shape to migrate to a new server....and might even want to look at
> SBS 2003 while you're at it.
The error is
** STOP: 0x0000007F (0x00000008, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
UNEXPECTED_KERNAL_MODE_TRAP
Tried it without the NIC - still a 'no go'. Can't really do without the 2
ide disks and the graphics card. Did try new ram modules too, also with no
success. Nothing else is plugged in and there isn't anything else to remove.
I will not be going to SBS 2003 as MS forgot to put SQL server in there!
Many Thanks
James
tgl