Perform Exchange EDB Recovery & Repair Exchange Database Using Eseutil Command

Exchange Server is a wide platform that brings multiple Outlook client accounts together at a single location. This is often found being used within large as well as small-scale enterprises. Exchange Server has been one of the most powerful creations of Microsoft. Microsoft Exchange server saves all its data in mailboxes that is stored in MS Exchange Database (EDB) Files. An EDB file saves all the in process as well as all non-SMTP messages.

 

Under this Server, two types of data storage folders are created; Private Folder, which stores all your private data, that is accessible to its authorized owner. Whereas Public Folders are the folders, which store shared data, the data shared, stored, and created by all users connected under same Exchange Server as yours. Corruption of any of these folders/ Files, i.e. EDB file can lead to a huge loss to the user and entire organization connected with Server. Therefore, it is necessary need to Repair & Recovery Exchange EDB database^[1] in case they get corrupted due to any reason.

 

Exchange Server EDB File

A separate location from your mailbox but within Exchange Server is a Public Folder. In it, all the connected users can create, view as well as share items with their respective MS Outlook client. In this case, the administrator of your Exchange Server enables the public folder for you. Then, it will be possible for you to view folders labeled in the name of Public Folder within the Folder List falling under Navigation Pane.

With appropriate permissions, you can even open up Public Folders of your own and add content within it to lets other users (who own appropriate access permissions) view it and use the data and information shared under the specific folder. Any item, which is opened within a Public Folder, seems like any other item located in the mailbox that belongs to you.

 

Repair Data of Exchange EDB File – Discover the Need

Only after encountering internal damage or corruption issues within your Exchange Server mailbox EDB file is when you may face the requirement of repairing it. Public Folders are just as prone of getting corrupted as Private Folders.

 

In this case, a common Public Folder for all Exchange users or your own Public Folder gets affected with mounting issues it may end up portraying the following error message:

 

Cause beneath the Issue

This kind of outcome is a result of an improper closure of MS Exchange Server Public Folder, which is often due to an unanticipated power failure. This state is known as a ‘Dirty Shutdown’ state, which is considered a critical situation. In many other situations, the crucial transact log data files may go missing that were not written in the database. Thus, collectively this turns out to give rise issues with the mounting of Public Folder EDB database and resultantly the above-mentioned erroneous messages get stated.

 

NOTE: Even when you are manually getting rid of the left over is belonging to the Active Directory from older version of MS Exchange Server that you had been using; possibilities are that occurrence aforementioned error is high.

 

Trying Manual Solutions Might Work

To overcome the discussed issue related to the mounting of Public Folders EDB files one can make use of the built-in utilities provisioned by Microsoft itself. The utility to be used is ESEUTIL.

 

ESEUTIL: This command based utility aids the facility of defragmenting MS Exchange Server database, which is in offline mode. You can verify a damaged database, defrag it, and repair it as well with the help of this utility. However, the solution served by this program comes with the limitation of fighting against only limited number of issues, which mostly include the ones very low in intensity. In addition to that, in case of even a little mishap in the process, may result in the loss of the entire Exchange EDB database.

 

It comes up with two ways to repair Exchange EDB database as mentioned:

 

 

 

Firstly, you need to authenticate the database state. For this, you need to run command eseutil/mh.

 

The resultant, which comes out shows that database is in the state of dirty shutdown state as shown below:

 

 

Now, you can also check the result under log requirement, which shows the Exchange EDB database, is missing in transaction log. You can relay log files into database to get the consistency database. For this, follow eseutil/r/l./d with eseutil.

 

 

Once the Exchange EDB database is repaired completely, you can then execute eseutil/mh command to authenticate that database is in state of clean shut down.

 

 

This will work when the users restore database from backup of MS Windows Server. However, occasionally it does not work therefore, it is essential to do hard repair.

 

 

Hard repair can be done by utilizing eseutil /p. It will benefit to check database for any damaged pages. If it gets any damage page then, it will automatically delete them.  To implement hard repair, you must have twice as much free space because the size of database before execution is required for creation of temporary database.

 

Note: While execution of hard repair you might lose your data.

For execution of hard repair, use eseutil /p command, as shown:

 

References

1. ^{^} Repair & Recovery Exchange EDB database (www.systoolsgroup.com)

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