ESEUTIL: Everything You Need to Know to Repair Corrupt Exchange Mailbox Database

Exchange database (EDB) recovery is often required when the database is dismounted from the server or becomes inaccessible. This may occur due to several reasons, such as server crash, force or abrupt shutdown, virus or malware intrusion, or software and hardware failure. Recovery from a corrupt or damaged database can be a tricky situation, depending on the level of damage. In Exchange Server, Microsoft provides a native command-line tool called EseUtil that helps check the status of a database and perform a soft or hard recovery. It also helps restore an EDB file for Dial tone recovery and recovery databases (RDB).

Once this process is done, you can recheck the database state by using the Eseutil /mh command and then mount the database by using the Mount-Database cmdlet. The repair process may take a while to finish, depending on the damage or size of the database.

How To Run Use ESEUTIL To Repair Corrupt Exchange Mailbox Database

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If you still get errors and the database remains in a Dirty Shutdown state, then try to repair the database via hard recovery. But before doing this, you must know that this repair process will purge any data that EseUtil finds as damaged. You need to consider and accept data loss that hard recovery will cause, irrespective of the damage.

Alternatively, you can use Stellar Repair for Exchange to do the job effortlessly and in much less time. The application can open a corrupt EDB file from any Exchange Server version. You can then repair the database. It also allows you to perform a granular search with search filters.

The software help extracts mailboxes and saves them in PST format when the database is damaged with no possible way to fix it. This can help avoid downtime and restore user mailboxes so that business can continue. You can also use this EDB Recovery Software to import mailboxes from an EDB file directly into a live Exchange Server database with an automatic mailbox match option.

Summary: Extensible Storage Engine Utility or EseUtil is a common line-based tool in Exchange Server that helps administrators to recover a mailbox database from inconsistent or Dirty Shutdown State. It is also used to defragment the database, check database status and perform other database management operations. In this guide, we will discuss how to use EseUtil to repair a dismounted, corrupt, or inconsistent Exchange database and mount it back on the Exchange Server.

However, if the server shutdowns due to any reason, such as a crash, power failure, etc., before the records in the transaction logs are committed to the database, it can damage or corrupt the Exchange mailbox database. In such situations, the database dismounts automatically and enters the Dirty Shutdown state or becomes inconsistent, preventing users from accessing their mailboxes or sending and receiving new messages.

The next option is to repair Exchange 2013 or 2016 databases via Eseutil or Isinteg. However, these utilities help fix the Exchange database only when the level of corruption is minimal.

You can check the amount of free space or whitespace in the Exchange database by searching your application log for Event ID 1221. You can use this information to calculate the free space required on your drive for EseUtil to work and repair the database successfully without error.

Eseutil commands can scan, repair, and defrags a low level of corruption in the Exchange database. Below we have explained the stepwise process to repair Exchange Database via Eseutil and Isinteg.

If the output displays Clean Shutdown, the database is repaired and you can use the Exchange Admin Center or Mount-Database PowerShell cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) to mount the database and restore mailbox connectivity.

However, if the database is still not repaired and shows Dirty Shutdown or Soft Recovery fails due to missing or deleted logs, you can perform the Hard Recovery on the database by using Eseutil /p command.

To check if the Hard Recovery process has successfully repaired the Exchange 2013 or 2016 database or not, use the eseutil /mh parameter. If it is successful, the database state will show Clean Shutdown.

To avoid the risk of disruption, and downtime and ensure database repair with complete integrity and precision without the risk of the database, use an Exchange database recovery software, such as Stellar Repair for Exchange.

Recommended by MVPs and IT experts, the software can repair even severely corrupt Exchange database files, irrespective of the Exchange versions or level of corruption. The software supports Microsoft Exchange server 2019, 2016, 2013, and all earlier versions.

Exchange Servers are the lifeline of business communication. Therefore, it has to be up and running 24*7. Despite this fact, Exchange administrators have to face situations where Exchange Server or database goes offline. At such times, the most feasible option is to analyze the cause behind such an issue and resolve it at the earliest. If it is due to severe Exchange database corruption, then trying Eseutil and New-MailboxRepairRequest or Isinteg command to repair Exchange database 2003/2007/ 2010/ 2013/2016/ 2019 may not be practicable. Instead, use Stellar Repair for Exchange to repair severely corrupt database files. The software supports Exchange Server 2019, 2016, 2013, and earlier versions.

ESEUTIL is an Exchange tool that is well known among administrators as it accompanies them since the era of Exchange 4.0. It was proofed to be tremendously useful for a variety of purposes, e.g. for fixing corrupted databases, defragmenting them, reducing their size or checking their integrity.

Here I have tried to explain the terminologies involved in a repair process like how the Exchange JET database stores information properly arranged in physical and logical pages and how the repair, defrag and ISINTEG process get rid of corruption.

Now this is where my personal practices slightly differ from those of MS Support (use at your own risk). Starting in Exchange 2010, mailbox moves are Online. So what I do is immediately create move requests for all mailboxes on the database in question to another database. The mere process of moving a mailbox should remove corruption (as seen above) & it has the benefit of allowing your users to work while the move takes place. Once the mailboxes have been moved I then run New-MailboxRepairRequest against all the mailboxes.

Command DescriptionEseutil is a Jet database repair utilitySwitch Action/D Defragments the database/R Soft recovery of the database/G Integrity Check/K Checksum/P Hard Repair/ML Log File dump/MH Database file dump/Y Copy/C Restore

Before executing Hard repair command, ensure that you have enough space in the server. While performing hard repair it creates a temporary database.eseutil /p command for hard repair.After that, you can verify the database clean shutdown state by running the commandeseutil /mh

If you are facing the errors like unable to mound the database, dirty shutdown, corrupt database, etc. EdbMails Exchange server recovery software can fix these issues. This software repairs the EDB file without changing to its original data format and data structure of the database.

A. You have a corrupted database or corrupted logs. Several tests need to be performed, to see what the issue is (this is an example for Exchange 2010, but it works for previous versions as well):

Eseutil and Isinteg are two neat little tools used to defragment and repair Exchange databases. Eseutil deals with the Extensible Storage Engine (a generic database engine which can be used by different applications including Exchange and Active Directory) and Isinteg deals with checking Information Store integrity.

Eseutil is used to defrag, check the integrity, and repair an Exchange database. It is installed with Exchange and can be found in the \Exchsrvr\bin folder. Eseutil examines the structure of the ESE database tables and records and has eight modes of operation, including Defragmentation, Recovery, Checksum, Integrity, Repair, File Dump, Copy File, and Restore.

NOTE: Although Exchange 2003 performs a nightly online defrag of the Exchange database, you may need to perform an offline defrag if you've deleted a lot of objects from the store, recently migrated a lot of new users to the mailbox store or when you notice that there is a significant amount of free space in the database and you want to reclaim it. An offline defrag will compact the database and free up the unused space. It is important that a defragmentation takes place after you've used the /p (repair) switch.

You should see '0 bad checksums' in the results report. Bad checksums are an indication of a corrupt database store (the Information Store service will probably fail to start too). Check the event logs for events related to MSExchangeIS.

Use the Eseutil /p switch to repair Exchange databases. Before running this command ensure that the Exchange databases really cannot start, that you have made a backup of the databases and that free disk space is equal to at least 20% of the database size.

Before the repair is initiated a warning message will appear stating that a repair should only be done on damaged or corrupt databases and that it may cause information to be lost. Press OK to go ahead and start the repair process or Cancel to back out.

Once the repair process has started, it will show you the progress and report back with the results when it completes. Notice the note at the end recommending a full backup. After doing so I would also recommend moving the mailboxes to a new mailbox store and then deleting the old one once everything is smoothly up and running again. 2ff7e9595c