How can I merge a RecoveryDB into an existing mailbox, or how to export it to a (PST) folder?

Question

I rebuilt my domain servers, including my Exchange 2013 server. I created a new mailbox database which is now being used. I need to recover items from my previous mailbox database.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/recovery-databases-exchange-2013-help states:

"Mailboxes in an RDB can't be connected to user accounts. To allow a user to access the data in a mailbox in an RDB, the mailbox must be merged into an existing mailbox, or exported to a folder."

I can't find any documentation on how to accomplish this "merge". so I attempted to do a New-MailboxExportRequest to export the RecoveryDB to a PST file, using this script;

Load Exchange PowerShell Snap-in

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010

Iterating over the mailboxes database

ForEach ($DB in Get-MailboxDatabase)
{

check the existence of database backup folder

if( !(Test-Path "\\WS2012XCH3\ExportedPSTs\$DB") )  
{  
    #Create backup folder for database if not exist  
    New-Item -ItemType Directory -Name $DB.Name -Path "\\WS2012XCH3\ExportedPSTs\"  
}  

#Iterating over the mailboxes for in each database    
 ForEach ($Mailbox in (Get-Mailbox -Database $DB.Name) )   
{  

Export each mailbox into releated database folder

    New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox $Mailbox.Alias -FilePath ("\\WS2012XCH3\ExportedPSTs\" + $DB.Name + "\" + $Mailbox.Alias + ".pst")  
}  

}

but it only exports the new mailbox database. The RecoveryDB mailbox database is listed, but no PST is created for it.

The edb was clean and mounted to a RecoveryDB using the following script:

New-MailboxDatabase -Recovery -Name RDB2 -Server MBX1 -EdbFilePath "C:\Recovery\RDB2\RDB2.EDB" -LogFolderPath "C:\Recovery\RDB2"

What I need to know is:
How to merge the RecoveryDB into the current DB?
or
How to export the RecoveryDB to a PST file?

Answer 1

Hi @Michael Faklis ，

As far as I know, there's no official method or tool available to directly export a recovery database to a PST file. And when it comes to "merge", you can use the New-MailboxRestoreRequest cmdlet to restore mailboxes or items from the recovery database to production mailboxes.

More details, hopefully you can find the instructions in the document below helpful:
Restore data using a recovery database

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Answer 2

Yes, the New-MailboxRestoreRequest finally made sense last night. I was spending time on a red herring because as I stated in my original post, the documentation from Microsoft states;

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/recovery-databases-exchange-2013-help states:

"Mailboxes in an RDB can't be connected to user accounts. To allow a user to access the data in a mailbox in an RDB, the mailbox must be merged into an existing mailbox, or exported to a folder"

Why would MS state the RecoveryDB can be restored to a folder?