SharePoint Site Restoration Procedure:

Background

As users/admins might operate improperly in their SharePoint sites, and cause irreversible changes (permission settings) or even delete a top/sub SharePoint site, Site Restoration is required to retrieve the incident.

High Level Procedure

1.         Check which database the SharePoint site is stored in.

2.         Restore the database from net backup image. 

3.         Attach the restored database to another SharePoint farm (can use "unattached DB" option in Central Admin instead).

4.         Restore Site.

Detail Procedure

A.       Check Database

1.         For any case except for top site deletion, the database can be checked in Central Admin Site.

2.         If a top level site is deleted, it is impossible to check which database to restore in Central Admin or even SQL.
Access Server **, go to folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN, there are such records named as “ContentStat_201201.txt” (used for generating monthly KPI). Check the most recent one and get the database name.

B.       Restore Database

1.         Open NetBackup MS SQL Client

2.         Click “File” -> “Restore SQL Server objects”.

3.         Select the time period in the “Time filter” and click “OK”, then wait for several minutes.

4.         Select the image to restore. Under “Restore options”, choose “Restore selected object” and “Not recovered”. Under “Transaction logs”, Select “Stage full recovery”. Important: Select “Save” under “Restore script”.

5.         Click “Restore”, save the *.bch file and open it.

6.         Ref to below picture & script to modify the script then save.
Rename: rename the new DB to be different from the source DB.
Delete: delete the row.
Add Script: ref to below script, Move the source DB to a certain place.
 MOVE "WSS_Content"
  TO "I:\restore\WSS_Content_.mdf"
  MOVE "WSS_Content_log"
  TO "I:\restore\WSS_Content_.ldf"

7.         Click “File” -> “Manage script files”

8.         Choose the script you just modified and Click Start, then Click Yes

9.         To check the status, Choose “View status”

10.     After complete, a record will be generated.

11.   In SQL management studio, the restored database maybe in a status (restoring), in this case, execute below script to unlock it:
RESTORE DATABASEWSS_Content_RE
WITH RECOVERY

 

C.       Attach Database

1.         Copy the *.mdf and *.mdl file to another SharePoint Farm.

2.         In the SQL Server of the farm, open “SQL Server Management Studio”, and Attach the database.

D.       Site Restoration

1.         If restore a sub site, setup a DocAve job to proceed (The Farm must have DocAve installed and activated).

2.         If restore a top site, setup a DocAve job, or use stsadm script to proceed. The second one is recommended. While proceeding,

a)         Backup the site in both Farms.

b)        Delete the site in production farm, at the same time copy the backup file from UAT/DR Farm.

c)         Restore the site from the backup file.