How to recover lost Exchange server 2013?

The current article is for those who want to recover their lost Exchange server. All the described steps are applicable only for Exchange version 2013.

There can be two cases when a user wants to recover the server:

• The lost server was not a member of DAG
• Or the lost server was  a member of DAG

Let’s consider the first case when a user wants to recover the lost server that was not a member of DAG.

How to recover lost Exchange server 2013?

Setup /m:RecoverServer switch command can be used to recover a lost server. This command fetches information and other Exchange settings from the AD (Active Directory). This fetched information is used while rebuilding the Exchange server with the same name.

The server on which you want to perform recovery procedure must have the same operating system, performance characteristics, hardware configuration and disk drive letters databases as the lost server.

Follow the given steps to perform lost Exchange server recovery:

• Reset the computer account (i.e. the computer account for the lost server).
• Go to Start>Control Panel >Administrative Tools>Active Directory Users and Computers.
• After that 'Active Directory Users and Computers' folder will open then, click Computers.

• Click the Reset Account button from the details pane
• Note: You can also run the following command using command prompt to reset a computer:
• dsmod computer <ComputerDN> -reset
• New server name should be same as the lost server name, remember this while naming the new server otherwise server recovery couldn't be performed.
• Join the new server to the lost server domain.
• Now, log on to the server which is being recovered
• Once you are logged on:
• Go to Exchange 2013 installation files
• Run the below  command using command prompt:

Setup /m:RecoverServer /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

• Once the setup is completed you can reconfigure the settings if required.
• Restart the server.

Now, you are done with the lost Exchange server recovery process.

Before running the above steps ensure that the server on which recovery is being performed has the same operating system and hardware configurations as the lost server. Sometimes, these steps will not work as it requires some Prerequisites for Exchange server 2013.

For more details about the required Prerequisites check: https://technet.microsoft.com/library/bb691354(v=exchg.150)

If you want to verify that a successful server recovery was done or not, you can do it by simply opening the Windows Services and there, you can find all Microsoft Exchange services that have been installed and running.