Roll-Forward Recovery

Roll-Forward Recovery

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A roll-forward recovery should be used when the transaction log files are intact on disk, but one or more databases must be retrieved from backup. When only database files are lost, there is a reasonable path to completely recover the storage group data to its state immediately before the failure without having to perform a full recovery because each affected database can be selectively restored from a full backup of the storage group.

To recover from damaged database files, the backup application restores the database files and transaction log files from the last full backup, and then replays the transaction logs against the restored database files. Any number of databases within a storage group can be selectively restored from a full backup of the storage group using roll-forward recovery. However, if selective recovery of individual databases is performed, all the databases in the storage group must be dismounted in order for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 to replay the log files and bring a single database up-to-date.

You must dismount the entire storage group because the log files are shared by the whole storage group and transactions cannot be logged while it is being replayed. If the storage group is not dismounted, the restore process will fail and an error message will be written to the event log detailing the cause of the failure.

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This topic last updated: December 2004

Build: June 2007 (2007.618.1)

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