Tag Archives: pst

Review: Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery

Recovering data and mailboxes from Microsoft Exchange EDB databases can sometime be a nightmare. I came across the software from Stellar Phoenix called Mailbox Exchange Recovery and for a small software, I managed to solve huge problems while minimising the time of recovery and the time effort to recover the mailboxes/items or EDB databases versus the conventional tools available.

Apart from solving the problems I had, Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is a simple to use software. When you open it, you just point the software to the EDB file and it will automatically scan the EDB file to list the mailboxes. Depending on the corruption of the EDB database you can choose between Quick Scan or Extensive Scan. Once the scan is complete, you will get a full preview of all mailboxes in the database with the facility to browse in the actual folders. Apart from that you can also have a preview of the email you are looking at in the right pane. With this software you can also scan and export from multiple EDB files if you have multiple departments and create an EDB for each one.

If you have a specific recovery criteria from the user, you can easily filter by To, From, CC, Subject, Body, Attachment, Importance and Item Type; apart from the date range. There are various export options you ca use which some are PST, MSG, EMAIL. It came very useful when I had to recovery mails or mailboxes from a decommissioned Exchange Server, where I just restored the EDB file and exported all the mailboxes to PST in one go. This version of Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery can server also in migration projects to Office 365, where for example I found it very useful with Exchange 2007 clients migration to Office 365 and apart from exporting all mailboxes to PST was very easy and fast. On the other hand, you can easily restore the mailboxes to a live EDB file or directly to an Office 365 tenant. Really came in handy for a client who was migrating to Office 365 from a Exchange 2007. The solution was to export all mailboxes to PST, upload them and importing them through Office 365 portal but then this software allowed me to open the EDB file and export/import the mailbox directly to Office 365 without any hassle with all the calendar, tasks ad folder structure the user had in his on-premise solution. So apart from a recovery tool, I found it an excellent tool for migration tasks.

To cut story short, you can go with the repair, scan and use other applications to recover a corrupted EDB, but to be honest why would you end up with a huge amount of time scanning and repairing where you can easily use this software to recover you data and not having raging users waiting to access their precious emails? With Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery, one can easily create a new EDB file containing new mailboxes, export all mailboxes to PST using the application and restore business in no time.

In conclusion this is a great tool to have if you have Microsoft Exchange servers or if you are in a position to migrate to Office 365. The software is so easy to use and for the price, it’s really worth the money starting from $399 to $999 depending on the license needs. If you are still indecisive, you can always download the trial to check if your EDB file is recoverable. The software supports Exchange 2016 downwards to Exchange 5.5.

Check the software on the link below and get your trial now

https://www.stellarinfo.com/edb-exchange-server-recovery.htm

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How to export mailboxes to PST in Exchange 2010

A new set of PST export cmdlets, introduced in Exchange 2010 SP1, make it easier for Exchange administrators to export primary and archive user mailboxes to Outlook Data Files (PST). Though not recommended for storing large amounts of enterprise data, Exchange administrators use the Outlook Data Files to back up individual user mailboxes in certain scenarios – such as an employee leaving the business. This can help meet regulatory compliance mandates without having to back up the entire database. Additionally, a PST file can serve as an easy destination for exporting user mailboxes from corrupt databases in order to later import them to a healthy one.

Which users are permitted to export mailboxes to PST?

All users, including administrators, need to be assigned Mailbox Import Export role in order to export mailboxes to PST. This can be done via the Exchange Management Shell. To assign Mailbox Import Export role to a user, run the following cmdlets in the Exchange Management Shell:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Role "Mailbox Import Export" –User <user name>

For example:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Role "Mailbox Import Export" –User Administrator

lepide_1Figure 1.Assign Mailbox Import Export role to a user

To assign Mailbox Import Export Role to a security group, run the cmdlets:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "Mailbox Import Export" -SecurityGroup <Security group name>

For example:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "Mailbox Import Export" -SecurityGroup MailboxExportImportGroup

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Figure 2. Assign Mailbox Import Export role to a security group

To check which users have the rights to export mailboxes, run:

Get-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role “Mailbox Import Export” | Format-List RoleAssigneeName

lepide_3Figure 3. Check for users who have the rights to export mailboxes

The location of destination PST

The destination PST file for the mailbox export needs to be in a shared folder that is accessible from Exchange. Share the destination PST folder and provide Read/Write permissions for the Exchange Trusted Subsystem over it.

How to export mailboxes to PST

Mailboxes are exported to PST by creating mailbox export requests. To create an export request for a user mailbox, run:

New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox <mailbox name> -FilePath <network share path to the target PST file>

lepide_4Figure 4. Export mailboxes to PST

Note: You can create as many requests as required; but a unique name need to be given for every request after the tenth one (after which Exchange will not generate unique names for requests). To name a request, use the parameter ‘–Name’.

To export an archive mailbox, use:

New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox -FilePath –IsArchive

Note: To include or exclude specified folders in the export, use –IncludeFolders or –ExcludeFolders parameter.

Getting the details

To get details about the mailbox request, run:

Get-MailboxExportRequest

lepide_5Figure 5. Get the details about mailbox export

A better way to export mailboxes to PST

Exporting mailboxes to PST using the Exchange Management Shell is not a quick process, and many IT teams find that it is not a viable method when faced with strict deadlines. Specialised Exchange recovery management solutions, like Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager, provide powerful PST export facilities and simplify the whole process of data recovery. Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager also works with all versions of Exchange to ensure maximum compatibility with your Exchange environment.

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Figure 6. PST export options in Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager

The solution’s Export Mailboxes dialogue displays some of the important features included:

  • Select mailboxes to export in PST allows easy selection of one or more mailboxes for export
  • Filters provide granular filtering options that can be done according to a date range or item types
  • This solution allows users to browse for the destination, split the Outlook PST file and create Unicode PST

Getting user-friendly details about items, folders and mailboxes exported to PST

With Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager, getting item, folder, and mailbox details exported to PST is easy and the reports provided are simple to understand. The solution shows you information on the export operation, mailbox (es) exported, folders in the exported mailboxes and the messages in the exported mailboxes folders. The screenshot below shows a sample of the operation logs created when multiple mailboxes are exported to PST:

lepide_7Figure 7. Details about the mailboxes exported to PST

Conclusion

Microsoft Exchange (from 2010 SP1 onwards), uses a new set of cmdlets to facilitate exporting mailboxes to PST. The user that performs this operation must be assigned Mailbox Import Export role and the destination PST folder must be accessible from Exchange. If you’re looking for an easier and quicker way to export mailboxes to PST, Lepide Exchange Recovery Manger is a powerful, cost-effective and user-friendly option.

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How to: Setup Import Export role in Office 365

I went to upload the PST files on a tenant to use the Office 365 Import service by uploading the PST files using the AzCopy.exe. After I was done, I started the import and after 60 minutes I get a failed error. I made some research and then restarted the import, but now I noticed a message saying “Please add Mailbox Import Export role for use running import and check back in 60 minutes“.

To do this,

– Login in Office 365 portal
– Click on Exchange
– Click on Permissions
– Click on Admin Roles
– Add a new role with Mailbox Import Export Role
– Add the user you are using to import as part of the group

Screenshot below

office365_importexportrole

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Fix: AzCopy.exe Could not finish the operation within specified timeout

When uploading files or PST files to Office 365 using AzCopy.exe, during the upload using Microsoft’s PST Import service you might have the frustrating error saying “The client could not finish the operation within specified timeout“. On the command prompt it will be seen as stuck on saying 0 files uploaded with a transfer speed of 0 KB/s. I literally spent hours trying to find out why my PST files do not upload to Office 365.

This can be fixed by lowering the concurrent operations with the import services. After looking at the option which is /NC option to either 2 or 1 depending on the internet connection upload speed. To be safe, in my case I have setup the NC as 1.

Here’s an example of how the command prompt will look like.

AzCopy.exe /source:\\My-Server\PST /dest:https://12345ab67cd89e0fg123h45.blob.core.windows.net/ingestiondata/Company/PST /destkey:jhdfasdfnasdnflasjkdfnjklsdanflasdfn/nfasdjkfnasdjklfnsjkladnfasjkldfnsdjklf== /S /V:d:\PST_Upload\upload.log /NC:1

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