Browse All Articles > Create an archive of an existing message store.
I have a customer that wanted to sign up for McAfee email archive storage. McAfee would connect to an archive message box and transfer all the contents to the offline storage, but they offer no method whereby you can copy all existing messages on the server. Nor could they provide any method to get all existing messages out into the cloud.
This is the method I came up with:
To create a mailbox archive:
1) Shut down the information store (so we can snapshot and have it closed and clean)
2) Create shadow copy of the drive
3) Start information store
4) Go to the folder that contains the data store, Right click and select “Previous Versions”
5) Go to the Exchange folder that contains the database, copy that ‘clean’ Exchange Database into a new folder on the same drive.
a. My database is located in D:\Exchange, I opened my previous version shadow copy taken at 5:15pm and copied it to D:\Archive
b. Grab the Mailbox Database.edb, and the e00.chk and the tmp.edb… dunno if you need all 3, but I grabbed them.
6) Within Exchange Console, Launch the Database Recovery Management
![Database Recovery Management]()
7) Create a recovery storage group
a. My recovery storage group created it in D:\Exchange\RSG20120315173100
b. Make sure that the Recovery group is associated with the original mailbox db that you will be recovering data into.
8) Moved the files from D:\Archive into D:\Exchange\RSG20120315173100
9) Mounted the DB recovery Group
10) Tell the Existing DB that it Can be Overwritten by a restore
![Overwriten by a restore]()
11) Select Merge or Copy
12) Gather Merge Information
13) Show Advanced Options
![Advanced Options]()
14) Select Match all source mailboxes to a single destination
15) Give the target mailbox of Archive
16) Perform Pre-merge
17) Select the mailboxes you wish to recover into the archive box…
18) Select “Perform Merge Action”
Hope you too can make use of the above method, and remember to please vote "Yes" is this Article was of interest to you...
This is the method I came up with:
To create a mailbox archive:
1) Shut down the information store (so we can snapshot and have it closed and clean)
2) Create shadow copy of the drive
3) Start information store
4) Go to the folder that contains the data store, Right click and select “Previous Versions”
5) Go to the Exchange folder that contains the database, copy that ‘clean’ Exchange Database into a new folder on the same drive.
a. My database is located in D:\Exchange, I opened my previous version shadow copy taken at 5:15pm and copied it to D:\Archive
b. Grab the Mailbox Database.edb, and the e00.chk and the tmp.edb… dunno if you need all 3, but I grabbed them.
6) Within Exchange Console, Launch the Database Recovery Management
7) Create a recovery storage group
a. My recovery storage group created it in D:\Exchange\RSG20120315173
b. Make sure that the Recovery group is associated with the original mailbox db that you will be recovering data into.
8) Moved the files from D:\Archive into D:\Exchange\RSG20120315173
9) Mounted the DB recovery Group
10) Tell the Existing DB that it Can be Overwritten by a restore
11) Select Merge or Copy
12) Gather Merge Information
13) Show Advanced Options
14) Select Match all source mailboxes to a single destination
15) Give the target mailbox of Archive
16) Perform Pre-merge
17) Select the mailboxes you wish to recover into the archive box…
18) Select “Perform Merge Action”
Hope you too can make use of the above method, and remember to please vote "Yes" is this Article was of interest to you...
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