Restoring Sharepoint 2010 after complete failure

[J_Worth]

Hello everyone,

 

Unfortunately, we suffered a massive network failure a few days ago which meant that we lost many virtual servers, including SIMS, Tucasi, Eclipse, Sharepoint as well as a few others.

 

We have managed to get SIMS, Tucasi and Eclipse back up and running by restoring from backups.

 

However, I haven't got a clue where to start with restoring Sharepoint 2010. The databases have been backed up onto our DPM 2012 box and I have now re-created a new VM to host the sharepoint site. Currently, I have installed SQL 2008 R2, Sharepoint 2010 and all updates.

 

How do I go about restoring the databases to get this sharepoint site back up and running as soon as possible? Do I have to create a new site collection and create fresh databases, which I then restore over with the backed up databases?

 

Finally, another problem is that the majority of the databases on the DPM box will only restore to the same SQL instance as before. I have setup SQL with the same instance name, but I am unable to restore the databases because the DPM agent is not installed on this new VM. I am reluctant to install the agent at the minute just in case it causes the backed up databases to get written over therefore, losing our information.

 

I hope that the above makes sense to someone and any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

J.Worth.

[andyfield]

Sounds like you are just looking to restore your SharePoint content if you have already built your farm. You are correct about creating a new site and collection. However you don't have to restore the database. In Central admin you need need to select your new web application and then find content database (option somewhere) . Here you can point your new application to your existing old database on sql. You should then have all your content returned. Sorry can't be more precise about menus as doing this from memory on my phone.

[J_Worth]

Having looked through the backups of the sharepoint databases, which database would I need to restore to get the structure and content back for our sharepoint site. Is WSS_Content the database?

 

Thanks.

[andyfield]

Yes. If you left default name that will be the one. Just restore database in sql tjen follow previous instructions to point me web application to sql database. Tuen everything will come back

[J_Worth]

Just wanted to say thanks for the information that you gave me regarding restoring our SharePoint site - it worked a treat.

 

Thanks again.

 

J.Worth

[dannybrown]

There are an other more advanced and affordable option available in online market for the SharePoint Recovery. It is Kernel for SharePoint Server Recovery software which is the sophisticated tool that effectively repairs inaccessible MDF files and recovers the database.

[zag]

Next time backup with Veeam

 

Should be a 1 click restore process.

 

I learnt this the hard way with sharepoint before!