How to Restore a Deleted Site Collection in SharePoint 2010

Hi all,

Today, I was asked to restore deleted files from a deleted Site Collection in our production farm.

As usual, when I receive this kind of request (recover deleted files) , the procedure is:

-          - Ask SQL Team to restore the DB from the day before deletion

-          - Mount the DB in a  specific Web Application

-          - Set the restored DB as “Offline” in Central Administration

-          - Go to the site and export the deleted files to the client’s SharePoint Site

-          - Remove the restored DB from the Web Application

-          - Delete the DB from SQL

The SQL Corporate rules concerning the backup retention time is 14 days.

But this time, the site was deleted for 16 days, so out of the backup retention time…

No restore available.

Then, I remember that the production DB are keeping the deleted Site Collections for 30 days !!!

Thus I will be able to restore the deleted Site Collection, and my client will be happy to recover all missing files.

Steps to follow are:

-          Get-SPDeletedSite : this will give the list of all deleted Sites Collection in the Farm

In the red box, I can find the Path and the Deletion Time, that match with the info given by the client.

-          I will then restore the Site Collection with the following cmd :

Restore-SPDeletedSite –Identity “/Sites/CD10000059”

               

                /!\ A Site Collection must not already exist at the URL location to perform a restore /!\

Voilà, the site is now restored from the DB’s recycle bin.

That’s all folks