I have forgotten the main admin password for my server, and I used a linux boot disk to change it, but now the server wants me to login in repair mode which never works. I have OEM server disks, if I reinstall the operating system on the original partition (over the existing installation), will I still have the old exchange mailboxes?
I have all the users data on another partition, so that will be safe. I just need to be sure I can get the email from the server before I decommission it.
You're playing with fire here. Exchange is heavily integrated with Active Directory, and reinstalling the operating system is going to get you a new instance of Active Directory. You can't just plug an existing Exchange database into a new Active Directory instance. That's not going to work.
It's a but unclear exactly what you did to render the machine in a non-working state. If I were tasked with fixing this machine I'd start with getting it to boot Windows again properly, then I'd reset the domain Administrator password and perform an orderly decommissioning.
If you can give more details about exactly what you did and what you mean, specifically, by "...now the server wants me to login in repair mode..." (there's no "Repair Mode" in Windows Server-- do you mean "Directory Services Restore Mode"?) and we might be able to help.
You're running a major risk of losing all the email data, though, for sure.
