Recovery Storage Group in exchange 2003

[Ramesh Kumar Rathinam]

how to restore deleted user mailbox using recovery storage group

[Prabhakar]

Exchange Server 2003 provides quite a flexible and easy way to mount
storage databases using the new Recovery Storage Group feature. After
having started to restore the database from a tape you configure the
Recovery Storage Group that can be created by right clicking the
server object in Exchange System Manager and choosing to create a
Recovery Database Storage Group. Within this group you can now mount
your restored database and use the Exmerge utility to move the
recovered mailbox data from the Recovery Storage Group to the regular
storage group. Using this method, you can recover a whole database or
just a single mailbox. Every mailbox that is connected to the Recovery
Storage Group is disconnected and therefore not accessible to users
with mail clients.

Before you can run Exmerge.exe successfully you have to grant the
appropriate user permission to be able to open the store. In general
nobody is able to open storage than his own. Microsoft recommends
creating a new security group for it, adding the logon account to this
group and then granting this group permission on the database object
in Exchange System Manager. Another “quick and dirty” way to grant
permissions to the appropriate group is to put them into the security
group “Exchange Domain Server”. This will grant the account the
permission, too.

If you have successfully created the Recovery Storage Group you’ll
have to complete some final steps before starting the recovery
procedure. These steps are defining the path for transaction logs and
system files and then adding the database to be recovered to the
Recovery Storage Group by using the context menu.

Afterwards you can start your backup and restore application and
choose the database to be restored. After the restore is complete, you
can hopefully mount this store successfully. With this procedure you
are prepared to start the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Merge Wizard
(better known as Exmerge).

After having started Exmerge.exe from command prompt just follow the
instructions within the wizard to specify the export method, source
and destination server. If the Recovery Storage Group is on the same
Exchange server as the online database, this might be a single server.
You should then choose the appropriate mailbox to be recovered and
choose a temporary folder for log files. The wizard then copies the
data from the mailbox into the recovery database and merges it with
the corresponding mailboxes in the original storage. After this
procedure is completed you can successfully use the recovered mailbox
within your MAPI application.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824126

check this kb article for further details