Step by Step guide for Disaster Recovery of Exchange 2003:

Warning: This is a practical guide for disaster recovery for exchange and administrator(s) should perform the steps at their own consent. Author is noway responsible for sucess or failure of the restore.

1. Reinstall Windows. Reinstall the same version of Windows by running Windows Setup with the following options: -- The hardware and software configuration should match the original Exchange server, including the same components, the same version of Windows, the same service packs and hot fixes, the same drive designations, and the same server name. -- You should not join the Windows domain. Configure Windows as a standalone server in a workgroup. The server will automatically rejoin the correct domain when you restore the System State from the backup media.

2. Restore the disk drives. You should restore the system drive and any other drives containing data or applications. Select Start Restore to begin recovering the drives.

3. Recover the system state. Select the System State check box. The System State backup includes Active Directory data, Windows registry data, and other data that are not usually backed up by file and drive backups. Select Start Restore to begin recovering the System State. Restart the server. You will receive an error dialog box informing you that at least one service could not be started. The failing services are the ones that require Exchange. Windows incorrectly believes these services are configured on this server because they are listed in the System State backup. This problem will be corrected automatically when Exchange is reinstalled in disaster recovery mode.

4. Reinstall Exchange in Disaster Recovery Mode. Insert the Exchange Server 2003 CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive. Select Run from the Windows Start menu. As the command to run, enter x:\setup\i386\setup.exe/DisasterRecovery, where x is your CD-ROM drive. Select OK to start the setup program. You must install Exchange to the same drive and directory on which it was installed on the original server. Ensure that each component that was originally installed has an action of Disaster Recovery. If all of the originally installed components are not automatically set for Disaster Recovery, you must manually select them. Running Exchange Setup in Disaster Recovery mode restores the original Exchange system configuration and services. Once you have restored the Exchange configuration, you can recover the Exchange databases.

5. Restore Online Information Store databases.