Recover exchange database from sbs 2008

I'm going to tell you that you should probably call microsoft and pay the charge they are going to bill you.

The files you want are here::

c:\program files\exchsrvr\mdbdata

These files are encrypted. You cant export them without mounting them. And to mount then you need a server that has the same name and organization as the SBS 2008 server it was on.

Can you not boot the SBS 2008 server? Or is all you have is the hard drive?

If I understand you correctly, the old SBS server is no longer bootable or functional?  If at all pssible, it is best to get the old SBS server booted and do a proper export and import of Exchange data using the Export-Mailbox and Import-Mailbox Powershell cmdlets.

If you can boot back the old SBS 2008 server you can use exmerge to extract the mailboxes:

http://www.exchangeinbox.com/article.aspx?i=88

For the public folders you'll have to copy them to PST from outlook.

You could also try DisktoVHD and then boot the old server as a Virtual maching then migrate the data.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx

I have trouble with my AD so I cant boot the server, and I don't have a local admin user to enter into Directory Services Restore Mode to try fix my ad....

Do you have a backup of your AD?

Alot of times when I run into this MS will have me install a separate install of windows so I can restore the AD files to the broken version of windows.

nope. Is it possible just to replace the edb files?

The only way that would work would be to make sure the server the edb files are going to is practically identical to the old server in terms of server name and exchange organization.