Restore Exchange 2003 database to disk on a server not running Exchange

Don't know if this is a day late and a dollar short, but... what version of Exchange 2003 are you running? Standard or Enterprise?

Standard only allows you to have a single Storage Group, while Enterprise allows for 4.

I suspect Veritas/Symantec means for everyone using 10d to do a brick-level backup of Exchange and can, therefore, restore individual mailboxes.

A couple years ago I could have told you why you're allowed to create that 2nd Storage Group with the Standard version, but I've forgotten the answer.

I think what I ended up doing was:

• Installing Exchange on a completely separate box (you can re-direct the backup to it)
• Restoring the Storage Group to the newly-created server
• Exporting the mail I needed to a PST
• Using ExMerge to get the data in the necessary mailbox
• Destroying the newly-created Exchange server

Soon after all this, I handed in my two week notice...

The way you've described it, option 3 may not be the best for you (I'm confused why you didn't use option 2?). In fact, Method 3 makes less and less sense every time I read it (probably only because it's Saturday though).

Method 3: Restore a Mailbox from Backup to a Recovery Server

Use this method if the mailbox object in the recovery storage group cannot be matched to a user object in Active Directory that has the same msExchMailboxGUID value. This situation may occur if the user account is deleted from Active Directory or if the Exchange attributes are removed from the user account, and the mailbox in the Exchange store was not reconnected or was purged.

That aside, the following things spring to mind.

• Make sure your disk layout of your VM is the same as your production server. If you have separate volumes for Windows, Exchange DBs and Exchange Logs make sure these exist on the new VM with the same drive letters.
• In your restore, do a custom restore and untick the Public Folders. I've had a weird issue before where the Public Folders weren't in the backup (on purpose) and that messed up the Information Store restore for no good reason

You might also want to try something a bit different (although this is a bit more involved). Basically, totally blow away this VM (please uninstall Exchange properly though for your own sanity), start from absolutely nothing and restore each required component.

Make sure this VM is not connected to your production network

• Install Windows
• Update Windows to the same Service Pack level as the production server
• Restore the latest Active Directory backup you have onto this VM
• Install Exchange using the setup.exe /disasterrecovery switch
• Install the same Exchange Service Pack as the production server using the update.exe /disasterrecovery switch
• Try your restore again
• ExMerge the restored Mailbox into a PST and copy whatever is missing into their production Mailbox

Meta: You gotta love that KB article. It says This article describes two methods that you can use to recover or to restore a single mailbox in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 then promptly gives you 3 options!