Monday, September 10, 2012

How to Restore Exchange Data from Corrupt Backup Files

Backup is an easy and smart solution to fight data loss in an event of corruption or similar vulnerability. It is a preventative measure that is a part of your contingency plan for a disaster scenario. In order to sustain your current growth and continue with your daily operations, key business data needs to be protected. So, backups play a significant role in your overall success. However, this is not always true. These backup files may get corrupt and render your data inaccessible.


In Windows, backup archives are created using the NTBackup.exe tool and carry the extension ‘.BKF’. They can also be created using Symantec Backup Exec. Similarly, Exchange users backup their databases with Windows NTBackup utility. By default, NTBackup software is installed on Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003 computers. If you install Exchange 2000 Server or Exchange Server 2003 on these machines, the tool is automatically upgraded to backup Exchange databases. Exchange BKF files typically consist of user mailboxes, STM attachments, and LOG journals.

The BKF file format may get damaged owing to a number of variables, such as virus infection, interruption of the backup process, CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) errors, hardware failure, abrupt shutdown of the system, etc. These situations may lead to permanent loss of data because of corruption of the Exchange BKF file. You may encounter errors while trying to restore corrupt backup files as shown below:

‘The backup file is unusable or is deleted’
Or
‘Failure to open file’

A majority of these corruptions are related to bugs while the others stem from already corrupt hard drives or damaged files. If your backup file grows larger and larger, it becomes susceptible to corruption. Microsoft does not provide any inbuilt tool that can repair and recover damaged Exchange backup files and safeguard all your crucial Exchange data.

However, you will find a range of professional Exchange BKF repair tools in the market. With the help of these advanced utilities, you can easily fix corruption in your Exchange backup file and regain access to your mailboxes, storage groups, public folders, and other items in your BKF file. These software recover corrupt ‘.edb’, ‘.stm’, and ‘.log’ files from the backup. You also get a choice to save the scan information of the BKF repair process and perform Exchange backup recovery at any convenient time. Using these utilities, you can repair large backup files of MS Exchange Server 2007 and 2003.

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