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What to do when Defragmentation fails, and EDB files become corrupt?
Written By
Sandeep Saxena
Updated On
July 22, 2025
Read time 3 minutes
The management of large data in Exchange Server is always the main concern for Exchange administrators. Space freed up after deletion of data always remain unclaimed, so the utilization of this space is the primary need for many. Microsoft also takes care of this and offers an in-built Eseutil utility which offers the defragmentation of Exchange Server database. By defragmenting Exchange database, it means that the white space is recovered. Then the database shrinks and more storage space is available for new data.
EDB file defragmentation is done when the database is in an offline state, and no one can access it. Therefore, it is also termed as offline defragmentation of EDB files. Before you begin the defragmentation, make sure you have sufficient disk storage available to handle a temporary file that gets created during the defragmentation process. The standard command for defragging an EDB file is
Sometimes, while performing defragmentation, you might encounter failure, and the process may get stopped. Even the temporary created file Priv1.edb gets lost after renaming. These symptoms indicate that your mailbox or the EDB file is facing corruption. To repair EDB files, open the command prompt as Administrator and run the following command:
Eseutil /P {“database_complete_path”}
The above command only works with minor issues, if the command fails to fix the problem, you will get an error like this:
Until the error is resolved you will not be able to perform any operation on the EDB file, such as access emails or defragment Exchange EDB file. Users, dealing with this situation, come across these error messages due to damaged Exchange Server database. The database corruption might be a consequence of dirty system shutdown error , virus invasion, over-sized EDB file, etc.
Severe database corruption is not treatable with the Microsoft’s free command line tool, eseutil. To safely remove the damage without losing a single bit of your data, you must use an advanced Exchange data recovery tool to repair a corrupt Exchange database.
Kernel for Exchange Server is the best choice when it comes to recovering data and curing database corruption. It supports recovery from EDB files created with Exchange Server 5.0, 5.5, 2000, 2003 and all later versions. Moreover, with the integration of highly advanced algorithms, the tool scans and scrutinizes the entire database and gives you productive results after performing Exchange database recovery.
Top features of this advanced Exchange Server recovery software:
The tool also provides a free evaluation version that allows you to use the software before purchasing the Full version. The demo version will recover the Exchange Server items but with a limit of only 25 items per folder only.
The article describes the corruption issues in EDB file faced by the Exchange administrators while performing the offline defragmentation of the EDB file. It explains the use of eseutil command to perform the EDB repair, but as it can also throw an error, the final recommendation for users is a third-party tool, Kernel for Exchange Server.
