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SQL Database gone: Any options to recover emails? [message #153075]

Thu, 10 November 2022 02:13

dvaughan
Messages: 3
Registered: November 2022

Hi everyone. I am grasping for straws here and presume the answer to my question will be no but I'm out of ideas. And I am no long a GFI customer, moved to GFI back in 2019. Any help is appreciated.

Details of our problem:
I have two old Archive stores from 2016 (using MailArchiver version 2015) that were redirected using another member server's MSSQL Database (this was back in 2015). I do not know why, makes zero sense as this other member server was used at the time to run our AX application. All other Archive stores both prior and after 2015 were using the SQL Server on the same server where we ran MailArchiver from. I brought this old MailServer back to life the other day and could not figure out why some of the emails I was searching for (specifically those from 2016) would not open. I can see them in my search results but I cannot open them (therefore cannot download or export them). After digging in I realized the MSSQL database was pointing to that old server running AX which is no longer available. It is fully decommissioned, no backups, gone. At the time our MailArchiver setup was "MS SQL storage with File storage" so all the binary and index files are available to me and stored on the MailArchiver server but since the database is pointing to the now non-existent server it is now allow me to open these emails.

With that said, knowing the MSSQL database is gone, but that I do have all the binary and index files is there ANYTHING I can do to view the emails? Again I can see the email result when I run a search but I cannot click and open that email (or do anything with it) because presumable that database no longer exists. I guess my hope was I could still do something since I had the binary and index files but I know that's a long shot (since the actual emails are not stored in MSSQL)

Any experts out there have any insight to my problem and any possible solutions?

Thank you all kindly in advance.
-David

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Re: SQL Database gone: Any options to recover emails? [message #153076 is a reply to message #153075]

Thu, 10 November 2022 03:58

Nick.Geary
Messages: 73
Registered: January 2021

Hi David,

Recovery of the archived data depends on whether you were using SQL Storage (Data stored in the database) or SQL with file storage. Given you have the .bix or binary files, the data can be reprocessed and the Archive stores recreated. Please see the below Knowledge Base Articles with more details on the topic.

Move binary files to the GFI Archiver Import Service

Moving the Databases and Indexes to a Different Location

If you run into any issues I'd recommend to open a support ticket with us.

Nick Geary
GFI Software

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Re: SQL Database gone: Any options to recover emails? [message #153078 is a reply to message #153076]

Thu, 10 November 2022 06:11

dvaughan
Messages: 3
Registered: November 2022

Hi Nick! Thank you for sharing that info with me, I will try this tonight. We are using "MS SQL storage with File storage". I am glad to hear this recovery is possible despite no longer having access to the MSSQL database. Fingers crossed.

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