Microsoft Exchange and Office 365 eDiscovery and Granular Recovery with Ontrack PowerControls^™

Normally emails are stored deep within your backup software. The complete Microsoft Exchange mailbox server database file (.edb) is embedded within the backup software files. The .edb file contains all the mailboxes and their respective emails.

In order to gain access to the emails, you must first restore the backup access the .edb file. Then you have two options:

You make a brick-level backup with another physical Microsoft Exchange mailbox server to restore all or single emails

If you prefer an easy and reliable way, you use Ontrack PowerControls

Ontrack PowerControls is a specialised software package which allows you to easily extract the .edb file from its container format with its ExtractWizard and import it into the software. Soon after, you have full access to each and every email from the Microsoft Exchange mailbox server. Since Ontrack PowerControls maintains the integrity of the Exchange source files, it is the perfect tool to search, identify and export relevant data for ediscovery review or for compliance and regulatory requests.

You can recover a single email from tape by using Ontrack PowerControls for Microsoft Exchange. To access a single email, you just have to import an existing Exchange database file (.edb) or Personal Storage file (.pst) into the software. By doing so, you now have full access to the emails inside the Exchange or Outlook database file. Then, you can easily find the email required by using the advanced search functions, selecting the item and copying and pasting the email to any location.

Use Ontrack PowerControls ExtractWizard to select the backup with the target Exchange database file (.edb), usually identified by Exchange Server and date. ExtractWizard supports all major backup formats. Select the .edb and extract to a target location on your network. Launch Ontrack PowerControls for Exchange and select the .edb as the source.  Search across the entire .edb or within individual mailboxes, folders, attachments, and calendar items. With the advanced find functions of Ontrack PowerControls, it is easy to search by matching keywords, excluding keywords, dates, senders, subjects, and recipients. Select the items to be restored to the Exchange Server or exported for ediscovery. 

Use Ontrack® PowerControls™ to connect to the Exchange Server as a Target.

Click Find in Target, and then, in the Target pane, select the folder (for example, mailbox(es), Inbox) you want to search. The selected folder(s) define the scope of the search.

In the Search for words box, enter one or more words or phrases if you want to execute a keyword search using Boolean syntax, for example [“dog” AND “cat” AND “mouse”] OR [“rat]. Use the Exclude words box to refine the search.

Select where to search using Search In, and select one or more of the following checkboxes: Message Subject, Message Body, Attachment File Name(s), or Attachment Text.

Ontrack PowerControls has the ability to search multiple levels of embedded message items. Select Attachment Text in the Select in the checkbox. For Date, select an action performed on the document (such as Received, Sent, or Due) and qualify with dates for After, Before, or both. To preview the message items returned by the search, click the Preview checkbox.

Ontrack PowerControls has the ability to further refine the search by applying additional filter criteria to the search results. In the Results area, select the message items you want to export.

On the Tools menu in the Find in Exchange Target window, click Export.

On the Tools menu, click Export.

On the toolbar, click the Export icon. Right-click the mailbox, folder, or public EDB root, and on the shortcut menu, click Export. The Export Mailbox or Export Folder window appears. In the Format box, select PST, MSG, or TXT. In the Export to File or Export to Folder box, do one of the following: If you selected the PST format, enter the name of the resulting PST file. If you are exporting a mailbox, the name of the PST file defaults to the name of the mailbox (which can be modified).

If you selected the MSG or TXT format, enter the location of the exported mailbox, folder, or public EDB file. Select the Export Subfolders checkbox if you want to export all of the subfolders for the selected mailbox or folder. Filter by date range if desired. Click Export.