Repair EDB File & Recover Exchange Database – Manual Steps

Exchange Server being a powerful Server have high risk of getting corrupted due to variety of reasons.This article discusses about Exchange server, Error faced by the users and How to repair corrupted EDB File which allows user to recover Exchange database File easily through manual steps using Eseutil & Isinteg Utility mentioned in this article.

What is a Exchange Database EDB?

Microsoft introduced Exchange Server as a mail and calendaring server which runs on Windows Server series. It is being widely used in large scale organization for vast communication and data sharing. Exchange Server stores a tremendous amount of data in its Exchange database file i.e. EDB, sometimes referred as Exchange mailbox. EDB file contains emails, messages, calendars, task, journals, notes etc. The larger the database becomes, the more chances of corruption are there. Hence, with the introduction of Exchange, Microsoft embedded inbuilt fixers to fix Exchange database problems. In this article, we will discuss various corruption issues and methods to repair Exchange database.

Brief description about Exchange Database

• Exchange database consists of database file (.edb), transaction log file (.log), and checkpoint file (.chk).
• Microsoft Exchange Server uses Extensible storage engine, or JET Blue, to store and retrieve data via indexed and sequential access.
• Exchange database, sometimes referred as MAPI based database, stores messages submitted by Outlook client. Besides, it supports HTTP and SMTP messages.
• In order to achieve quick access, the database has B-tree structure.
• Exchange Server 2003 and 2000 store their data in public and private folders i.e. pub1.edb, priv1.edb. Moreover, multi-media attachments get stored in separate file named STM.
• Exchange Server 2010 and 2007 store their data in mailbox database.edb (private folder) and public folder database.edb
• Exchange Server 2013 stores the entire data in a file named Mailbox database name.

Most Common Issues in EDB

The following cases are the most frequently occurring problems which may lead to the corruption in Exchange mailbox that further require Exchange database recovery.

• Error Code: Operation terminated with error -550 JET_errDatabaseDirtyShutdown

  Exchange database is in a dirty shutdown state: This issue is encountered when system abnormally terminates. The next time when it starts, Exchange database goes into an inconsistent state.

• Error Code:-501 (0xfffffe0b) JET_errLogFileCorrupt
  Exchange transaction log files are missing: Log file records all the changes that are made in a database. Data is first written to the transaction log then written to the Exchange database. If the log files are missing then the EDB file becomes inconsistent.

• Third party antivirus or backup software conflict: These applications may vary Exchange mailbox during scanning process. They can corrupt Exchange database or Exchange information store may quit unexpectedly. To resolve the issue you can disable antivirus applications to repair Exchange Database.
• Exchange information store database reaches its size limit 16 GB (in Exchange server 2003): Exchange server mailbox could not be mounted if its size exceeds the limit. In order to repair exchange database 2003, one must use eseutil utility.

Resolution to EDB Error Code

• In order to run Exchange Server flawlessly and repair EDB, it must be shut down properly. Otherwise, the next time you turn it on, it will be no more consistent. If somehow this issue encounters then you need to repair EDB dirty shutdown. In such case, we will perform soft recovery, run the eseutil utility which can repair exchange database to restore edb file via the following commands:

• Check if it was clean shutdown or dirty shutdown. Execute the eseutil /mh command to do this. It is assumed that exchange server is installed in exchsrvr folder and database is stored in mdbdata folder.

• Soft Recovery:When it is found out that the shutdown was dirty then we need to perform soft repair exchange database to restore EDB File. Run the following command:

• In order to repair EDB without log files, one can perform hard recovery to repair Exchange Database.

• Restore Exchange Database using Backup In the process of hard repair EDB, transaction log can be replayed to restore EDB file (edb & stm) and log files from online backup. Once it is done, a file restore.env is created at C:\Temp.

• Repair Exchange database ESEUTIL /p When neither Log File nor Backup available in such cases one can execute eseutil /p command to repair EDB file to restore Exchange database with missing log files as mention below:

Note: Running eseutil/p removed corrupt pages which may lead to the data loss.

How to Repair Exchange Database Different Utilities ?

Although Exchange database may get corrupt due to various reasons such as improper shutdown, application malfunction, virus infection, hardware failure, database engine failure and many more, yet there are various methods provided by Microsoft to repair Exchange database & recover EDB file. Each and every version of Exchange server has its own way to to repair EDB.

1. How to Repair Exchange Database 2007 and 2003 Mailbox

There are two utilities available, named eseutil.exe and isinteg.exe, to recover EDB File exchange 2003 mailbox as well as 2007 database. ESEUTIL is used to scan, repair, and defragment the low level of the database whereas ISINTEG is used to fix Information Store integrity. These tools require Exchange database in offline mode. Execute Eseutil and Isinteg commands as given below:

• Recover EDB File Exchange database ESEUTIL /p

This command scan EDB mailbox and repair EDB file if it finds any issue. Execute the following command:

• Eseutil Defrag Database: Eseutil /d

Eseutil /p deletes highly corrupt pages instead of repairing them which may create white spaces. These empty spaces or unused storage can be removed using eseutil /d which defragment Exchange database.

• Exchange ISINTEG tool

Isinteg utility is complementary to Eseutil and is used to restore Exchange database and repair the integrity or structure of Exchange database when Eseutil finished repairing Exchange database.

2. How to Recover EDB File Exchange Database 2010 & 2013 Mailbox

With the arrival of Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft introduced online restore EDB File method which is an improvement over Isinteg utility. This new way, new-MailboxRepairRequest Exchange 2010 is used to detect and repair EDB file corruption & repair Exchange Database. The Powershell cmdlet can also be used to repair exchange 2013 database. Run the following command to perform Exchange database repair.

3. Hassle-Free Alternative

Another method is to opt for automated solution Exchange Recovery Tool by SysTools to recover mailbox from edb file Exchange. This will allow users to recover deleted emails from Exchange database & prevent data from high corruption. You can opt this method for effective Exchange Mailbox restore prevent from excess time-consumption.

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed about Exchange server, repair Exchange database EDB with its inbuilt utilities and commands, and corruptions issues with their resolutions. The above mentioned Manual Methods will help users to recover exchange database from corruption or any other damage in a very easy and effective way.