What to do When Defragmentation Fails, and EDB Files Become Corrupt?
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.
It is also termed as offline defragmentation of EDB file as the defragmentation is possible only after dismounting the database which means till the process is complete, accessing Exchange data is not possible. You would require enough storage space as a temporary file 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. In similar situations, mailbox might have possibly corrupted, and the user cannot mount it. This leads you to the conclusion that your EDB file is in a corrupted state and then you try to run the command
Eseutil /P in the Eseutil application but again got stuck with the error:
These actions leave you in a situation where you are unable to access Exchange Server database and cannot retrieve even a single bit of data from the database. 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.
Actually, the reason behind data loss doesn’t matter here, what matters is how users can retrieve their precious data. The solution to this problem is Exchange Server data recovery; it is a process in which the damaged database is repaired by utilizing advanced EDB file repair software thereby restoring the precious database. A good software is which can repair a corrupt Exchange database without any interruptions and data compromisation.
Kernel for Exchange Server is an advanced Exchange Recovery software that 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 programming, the tool scans and scrutinizes the entire database and gives you productive results of Exchange database recovery.
The free evaluation version of the software provides an overview of the software before purchasing the Full version. The demo version will recover the Exchange Server items but 25 items per folder only.
Summary
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.
More Information
I faced issues of corruption post defragmentation failure, but I am thankful to the developers who created Kernel for Exchange for users to fix and recover Exchange EDB database files and mailboxes with ease.