Microsoft Exchange Recovery Tool

Transaction logging is a disaster recovery procedure of Microsoft Exchange Server that helps the database to get restored in consistent state after any unexpected stop. When the database stops suddenly, it goes to inconsistent state. On next restart, Exchange Server locates and then scans the log files to apply them from the database file. But for any reason if it fails to locate those log files, the recovery attempts fail. This forces you to locate the missing log files manually. However, if it cannot be accomplished, you need to restore the database from a suitable backup or perform Exchange Server Recovery using appropriate database repair procedures.

For each event in Exchange Server, the application logs the associated entry in Windows Application log. So, you might encounter the following error message displaying in this application log, usually after unexpected stop:

“Database requires log files that could not be located. The database requires log files to continue. Make sure the log files exist. Check Event logs for more information.”

The event ID of this error in 453 and can cause database to become unmountable.

Cause

Exchange database needs some log files that it could not locate to continue. For further information on which log files could not be located, you can see the event description which mentions the sequence of log files that it could not locate. It also includes the log file number, up to which recovery has been possible.

Some prime reasons that might prevent log files from being located are:

1. The temporary folder doesn’t contain the log files. The transaction logs are missing.

2. An anti virus software is running that has quarantined the log file

3. A hardware failure that has caused log files to lose.

Solution

You need to apply these measures to solve the existing problem:

1. Check if the required log files have been moved. If yes, move them back to the correct folder. But if they have been deleted, you need to restore from the backup.

2. You need to stop the antivirus scanning if any and examine its registry settings to put back the current log files to correct folder.

3. If none of the above measures work, you should restore the database from the backup or apply eseutil repair (hard recovery) utilities to repair the database.

Eseutil hard recovery is not safe to use as it deletes the corrupted pages. Thus, you are suggested to use commercial Exchange Recovery utilities as a better option. The Exchange Recovery software are suitable choice to repair corrupted Exchange database using safe, yet effective, scanning algorithms.

Exchange Recovery Software is a powerful EDB Recovery tool that repairs corrupted Exchange database and restores the mailboxes in *.pst files. The Microsoft Exchange Recovery tool supports MS Exchange Server 5.5, 2000, and 2003. The software is easy to install and operable using simple steps that even a non-tech user can understand.

Microsoft Exchange Server first passes data to the operating system and then, depends on the installed device drivers and hardware to keep this data securely. In case, these lower layers fail to provide required protection to data, your Exchange database might become corrupt. This form of database corruption is counted as the most severe one since it lacks the ability of get repaired and compel you to restore the database from backup or delete the corrupted data using Eseutil hard recovery techniques. Another alternative can be to use an Exchange Server Recovery utility that provides mailbox extraction from the corrupted database.

Most of the physical database corruption errors are detected by Exchange Server while operations like taking an online backup or performing database maintenance. This is because during these operations, the database engine undergoes page-wise testing of database. As a result, it logs similar errors, as mentioned below, in application event log:

1. “-510 JET_errLogWriteFail”

2. “-1022 (JET_errDiskIO)”

Cause

Each Exchange database has a 40-byte header information that stores a page number a CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check). The database engine first determines the page number to ensure the requested one and then, checks the CRC value when reading the database page. If either of these checks fails, an error is returned, as above.

Before declaring the corrupt page, the database engine attempts to read it up to 16 times. These error indicate that either the page is bad or the database engine has failed in its trials without any success. You cannot backup the database in such cases and the operation is aborted.
Solution

You can avoid such problems by configuring a suitable hardware, device drivers, and firmware. Possible solutions to these problems are:

1. Restore from a backup, if is available and valid

2. Run eseutil /r command to find and remove bad pages from the database

The lost database pages might contain data that is important. For example, if the deleted page contains a B-tree index, it can render a considerable database part to become useless. To prevent from such situations, it is however, recommended to opt for safer Exchange Recovery solutions. The Microsoft Exchange Recovery software use intensive, yet safe, scanning algorithms to repair and restore the corrupted Exchange database.

This Exchange Recovery Software is a reliable tool that repairs corrupted Exchange database and restores the mailboxes in *.pst files. The Exchange Recovery utility supports MS Exchange 5.5, 2000, and 2003. The tool has an interactive interface that makes the software easy to operate. The tool is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000.

Exchange data fragmentation occurs within the database. To reduce its effect, Exchange Server includes a default defragmentation process (called online defragmentation) on daily basis as a part of regular maintenance process. Also, the application provides an offline defrafgmentation technique, which is accomplished by eseutil /d command. Both of these methods discard the unused space, but occasionally introduce some database errors that cause database to corrupt. To repair such corrupted databases, you need to apply eseutil repair commands or restore from the last available backup. However, if these measures don’t help, you should repair the corrupted database using an Exchange Recovery Tool.

For instance, consider the following practical scenario. You try to defragment the Exchange database (*.edb) with eseutil /d command, but the process fails while it is defragmenting the database. After this, you observe that the file in effect is named as *.edb.edb. You rename it to *.edb, but Exchange Server refuses to mount it further.

When you try to perform soft database recovery, you get an error message, as below:

“Checking database integrity.Operation terminated with error -1206 (JET_errDatabaseCorrupted, Non-database file or corrupted db) after n seconds”

The database is inaccessible .

Cause

The EDB file is severely corrupted and cannot be mounted.

Solution

You can try to implement the following suggestions to solve the described issue:

1. Restore from the last backup you have.
2. If the soft recovery has failed, you can use hard recovery command- eseutil /r. Make sure you backup the file first. It is the hard command and usually deletes the corrupted pages that it cannot understand.
3. If the above solutions are not valid, you should use a third-party database repair utility. Such software can easily repair a corrupted EDB file without harming the original integrity of the file.

Microsoft Exchange Recovery tools are specifically designed products with high competency to repair a corrupted Exchange database. An Exchange Server Recovery utility has a self-explaining interface and suitable documentation. They can repair a database corrupted due to any logical instance. For this, the software apply a powerful set of scanning procedures, which are also safe for the database originality.

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is a powerful solution that repairs and restores damaged Exchange databases in each case. The Exchange Recovery Software supports Exchange Server 5.5, 2000 and 2003. It is a safe database repair tool with various user-end graphic features. The tool recovers all user mailboxes in individual *.pst files, which can be imported in Outlook.

For Exchange Server, MAPI uses different interface methods. The OpenMsgStore is the method associated with IMAPISession interface that is used to open a message store. The method then results a reference that is passed to ImsgStore object for further access. When the method fails, the Application log of Exchange Server computer records an event that you can analyze for knowing the root cause of failure. Amongst other reasons, one possible cause of this behaviour could the corruption of message store. If this is the case, you require to run Eseutil repair utility, restore from backup or apply a mailbox recovery technique. However, you can also use an Exchange Server Recovery product in case none of these solutions seems relevant.

For instance, you may encounter the below event log description displaying in the application event log of Exchange Server computer:

The MAPI call ‘OpenMsgStore’ failed with the following error:
The Microsoft Exchange Server computer is not available. Either there are network problems or the Microsoft Exchange Server computer is down for maintenance. The MAPI provider failed.
Microsoft Exchange Server Information Store
ID no: 8004011d-0526-00000000

The error is logged with event ID 9175 and is specific to Exchange Server 2000 and 2003.

Cause

The above error indicates that the Information Store (IS) is not running or the mailbox store is failing to mount. If the IS doesn’t run, the System Attendant still remains active with the MAPI session. The IS may stop due to any of the below possible reasons:

1. You are using an expired evaluation version of Exchange Server

2. The partition storing the IS files is less than or equal to 10 MB in size

3. The IS is in dirty shutdown state

4. The store is dismounted and/or corrupted

Solution

You should first verify if the IS is running or not. For this, go to Services and check the status of Information Store. If it is running, make sure that the mailbox store(s) are mounted and if it is not running, try to restart the store. You can try these suggestions to overcome the IS and mount failure issues:

1. Use the activated version of Exchange Server

2. Make sure that the IS partition is greater than 10 MB in size

3. Replay all the transaction log files for the affected mailbox store

4. Backup your store and run eseutil /p command to repair it. The command can delete the corrupted pages and cause data loss.

For repairing the corrupted Exchange database safely, it is recommended to use an Exchange Recovery utility. Microsoft Exchange Recovery software are scanning-based products specifically built to repair the corrupted database and restore it at a safe location.

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is an advanced tool that repairs the corrupted Exchange database and extracts mailboxes in individual *.pst files. The powerful Microsoft Exchange Recovery solution can restore all file objects using safe algorithms. The tool supports Exchange Server 5.5, 2000, and 2003.

Soft Recovery is an automatic process in Exchange Server that replays the transaction log files on a database that is remounted after an unexpected shutdown. The process replays only those log files that have been specified for the storage group containing the inconsistent databases. It makes the databases complete with the recorded transactions. At times, the log files get damaged and unusable and this corruption is detected when Exchange performs soft recovery. In such situations, the databases remain inconsistent and lose the ability to mount. To restore them, you should use your latest available backup or use eseutil repair commands to bring the databases to consistent state. If these measures fail, this compels you to repair the databases using Exchange Recovery solutions.

For instance, suppose you try to mount a mailbox store or public store of Exchange Server. The operation may fail with an error described below:

“Corruption was detected during soft recovery in the log file”

The error further describes that the log file has been damaged and cannot be used. The error prevents the Exchange databases from mounting. The application event log marks the error with event 465.

Cause

The error indicates that the databases are in dirty shutdown state and the transaction log file is corrupted. Generally, it occurs due to corruption in Edb00000E8.log file.

Solution

To resolve the described error, you should apply the steps mentioned underneath:

• Backup Exchange databases related with corrupted log files in offline mode

• Run eseutil /mh command to check the databases for consistency

• If the databases are consistent, you can safely remove all the log files from the folder

• If the databases are not consistent, you should perform soft recovery using eseutil /r command

• If running soft recovery doesn’t work, you can restore from backup or perform hard recovery using eseutil /p command

Exchange hard command is called forcible-sate recovery command and can cause data loss. Thus, to repair the databases safely, you should use more reliable alternatives of Exchange Recovery. There are several Exchange Server Recovery products available that can repair a corrupted databases and extract all mailboxes from them.

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is an advanced and safe solution for repairing a corrupted Exchange database. The Exchange Server Recovery tool incorporates powerful scanning algorithms to result repair. It supports Exchange Server 5.5, 2000 and 2003. The software is competent at extracting mailboxes in individual .pst files.

An Exchange Server database can get corrupt for several reasons, which include database page checksum errors, B-Tree damage, table corruption and more. At this point, you should consider restoring from the latest backup or repairing the database by running Exchange utilities. At the last resort, you can use an Exchange Server Recovery solution.

For instance, suppose the Exchange Server starts Online Defragmentation on the database, but the process stops with an error as below:

“Online defragmentation of a database ended prematurely after encountering an unexpected error <err_no>. The next time online defragmentation is started on this database, it will resume from the point of interruption.”

The error is logged with event 705 in application event log.

Cause

There can be several causes that generate event 705 and the exact root can be determined by the err_no displaying in the error code:

1. Err -1018= Jet_errReadVerifyFailure implies checksum errors on database page. This also indicates database corruption at ESE level. The general causes are file system issues, hardware problems or controller issues.
2. Error -1069 = Jet_errVersionStoreOutOfMemory indicates out of memory issues in Exchange store.
3. Error -327 = Jet_errBadPageLink and Error -338 = Jet_errBadParentPageLink imply bad page link in B-Tree of database. The errors indicate database corruption at Jet level.

Solution

In case of Jet_errVersionStoreOutOfMemory error, you need to contact the product support services. For the other two errors, you should try these steps:

1. You should check the application event log for hardware, controllers and file system related concerns and take the corresponding action.
2. If the database exists in running state, you can use ExMerge to extract the database as .pst files and later, export them in a new database after deleting the corrupted one. Alternatively, you can move the mailboxes to another store.
3. If the database is not running, you should immediately restore it from an online backup (if available). When there is no backup, you need to repair the corrupted database by running eseutil /p and isinteg -fix commands to repair it. If none of the measures work, you are suggested to use a third-party Exchange Recovery tool. An Exchange Server Recovery software retrieves data from a corrupted Exchange database by running suitable repair algorithms.

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is an advanced and safe tool that performs systematic database repair of damaged Exchange databases created with Exchange Server 5.5, 2000 and 2003. The tool can recover all email messages, journals, notes, tasks and other objects. It is a comprehensive Exchange Recovery tool that extracts all user mailboxes by converting them into individual Outlook usable .pst files.

Microsoft Exchange Server is designed to write all the database transactions to certain log files and commit them later whenever the system allows. The transactions also exist in system memory, but get lost in the event of crash. If the Exchange Server undergoes unexpected crash, these transaction logs serve as the crucial recovery method. For this reason, the transaction lof files should be kept on a reliable system. The log file header contains information like file signature, base name, creation time, checkpoint etc. At times, your Exchange Server indicates as it is unable to read this information. These are critical situations that may compel you to restore the data from an online backup or perform hard recovery for your databases. However, it is highly recommended that you try to move Exchange mailboxes on another server or use an Exchange Recovery product to repair the database.

To exemplify, consider a situation when you receive the below error with your Exchange Server database:

“Unable to read the log file header.”

The error is logged as event 412 in application event log. The ESE error code that displays in Description section of this event gives detailed information of the root cause.

Cause

As the error suggests, it occurs when Exchange database engine cannot read the log file header. This indicates that log file has a mismatching signature, has corrupted header information or is corrupt. You can deduce the exact cause by the ESE error code the event shows:

1. Jet_errLog fileCorrupt or error -501: The header of the log file is corrupt

2. Jet_errBadLogSignature or error -530: The log files signature mismatch. The log file signature ensures the correct replaying of log files set and is included in each database header. The error occurs when they mismatch.

3. Jet_errDiskIO or error -1022: A disk I/O issue for requested page in transaction log or database. Generally, -1022 error occurs because of severe database corruption. For a log file, the cause is corruption of log file header.

Solution

You need to use any of the below procedures:

1. Check for the last online backup and restore

2. In case of valid backup unavailability, you can run eseutil /p command and later isinteg -fix command. It is a hard command and data loss is likely as will delete database pages. Thus, for your production database, it is recommended to use another Microsoft Exchange Recovery method like moving the mailboxes to other database or using an Exchange Recovery software.

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is a reliable and efficient solution for repairing corrupted Exchange databases created using Exchange Server 5.5, 2000 and 2003. The advanced Exchange Server Recovery tool can extract all mailboxes and store them in individual .pst files. The software uses intensive scanning algorithms for database corrupted due to any reason.

When you insert a new record in Exchange database table, Exchange inserts the corresponding index entry into index. For any reason, if the data page is flushed, but its index remains intact, database inconsistency might arise. This state of database is known as ‘lost flush’. Since the database comes to a dirty state, you should immediately apply the appropriate eseutil commands to repair it. If this doesn’t solve the issue, you need to restore the database from backup or use effective Exchange Recovery applications.

For instance, you might observe that Microsoft Exchange Information Store services stops responding at repeated intervals of time in a day. When you view the application event log, it shows event ID 467 associated with a 1025 warning as below:

Warning 1025:

An error occurred on database “First Storage Group\Public Folder Store (server_name)”.

Function name or description of problem: SLINK :: EcUpdate Error: 0xfffffa7a”

You come across a similar warning each time when event 467 is logged in MSExchangeIS public or private store.

Cause

Event 467 typically indicates secondary index inconsistency with the associated table. The database page is corrupted and is causing JET engine to hang.

Solution

To solve the issue, you need to first locate the corrupted database, which is specified in the Description section of event occurred. If you cannot view this information, you should first install the supported hotfix to include it. After the affected database is traced, follow these steps:

1. Start Exchange System Manager and dismount the database causing the issue.

2. Run eseutil /g command to confirm for database inconsistency

3. Run eseutil /d command to defragment and fix the corruption

4. Mount the database store

If the issue persists, delete the database provided you have a valid backup. In case of any issues with backup, you are suggested to use third-party Exchange Server Recovery solutions. These are powerful tools built to run high-end scanning algorithms for repairing the corrupted Exchange database. Microsoft Exchange Recovery utilities provide interactive design and thus, prove easy to implement solutions.

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is a fully-competent and secure tool to systematically repair damaged Exchange databases created with Exchange Server 5.5, 2000 and 2003. It provides safe Exchange Server Recoveryand extracts all user mailboxes by converting them into Outlook usable .pst files. The tool can recover all email messages, notes, journals, tasks and other objects.

Exchange Server databases’ transactions are temporarily stored in transaction log files. At times, you need to remove these files manually, usually when the disk runs out of space or the circular logging is disabled. If you come to such situations, it is recommended to determine that the logs have been committed to database or otherwise will cause problems. The database usually shows Dirty Shutdown state in such cases. However, the other reason for this is that database is corrupt. If it is, you should look for Exchange Recovery solutions.

You can take the following situation when you try to mount an Exchange Server database. In an attempt of mounting the database, you might receive an error as below:

“An internal processing error has occurred. Try restarting the Exchange System Manager or the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service, or both.

ID no: c1041724
Exchange System Manager”

The mount operation fails after you receive this error message.

Cause

Error c1041724 can be encountered if you have run eseutil /p repair utility on the affected database. At this point if Eseutil log files remain intact and are not removed, the database can fail to start with the above error.

Solution

To isolate the issue, you need to proceed as follows:

1. You need to first check if eseutil /p command was run. To do so, you should run eseutil /mh command for pub1.edb and priv1.edb and check the repair count value. If it is other than ‘0′, this shows that the command was run.

2. From the previous step, you also need to check for the database consistency. If it exists in Clean Shutdown state, which shows that the log files have been committed, you can safely remove the log files from Exchange Server folder, Mdbdata folder to a backup folder and mount the database.

3. If the database shows ‘Dirty Shutdown’ state, it may be because either all the log files have not been committed yet or the database is corrupt. You can wait for sometime to determine if uncommitted transactions is the case. If not, the database is corrupt that you need to restore from backup or by performing soft recovery.

In cases when database remains corrupted with no access to a suitable backup, you can use third-party Exchange Server Recovery utilities. These special applications allow safe extraction of user mailboxes without any modification to the original content. Exchange Recovery utilities provide you interactive design plus impressive features to experience.

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is a complete tool that repairs Exchange database repair systematically. It is a safe and powerful Exchange Server Recovery tool that supports Exchange Server 5.5, 2000 and 2003. The tool can restore mailboxes in individual .pst files, which can be directly accessed in Outlook. The software is enriched with a realistic approach to repair corrupted EDB file in each instance.

Exchange Server Storage Group contains one or more public and mailbox stores, depending on the size of organization and Exchange Server version in use. All the uncommitted transactions for Storage Group are logged in transaction logs. The Exchange Server might start behaving abruptly and logging unusual entries if any of these components get corrupt. In addition, you cannot backup a corrupted Exchange database. To repair the database, you should try running Eseutil utility, in case no copy of the database exists. However, for non-destructive repair of database, it is suggested to make use of third-party Exchange Server Recovery utilities.

For example, when you try to create Information Store backup in your Exchange Server, it fails and you receive 0xfffffea9 – 0xa000fea9 (2684419753) error. When you view the error log, it shows the below entries:

\\SERVER NAME\Microsoft Information Store\Storage Group\Mailbox Store(Exchange Server)” is a corrupt file. This file cannot verify.

\\SERVER NAME\Microsoft Information Store\Storage Group\Public Folder Store(Exchange Server)” is a corrupt file. This file cannot verify.

\\SERVER NAME\Microsoft Information Store\Storage Group\Log Files” is a corrupt file. This file cannot verify.

Cause

These errors can occur due to one of the below possible reasons:

• Exchange Server Information Store is also being backed up by another backup utility at the same time
• The backup process is scheduled to run exactly when Exchange Maintenance is
• Exchange Server database is corrupt

Solution

To solve the described problem, you should try the following measures:

• Make sure that no other backup process is running at the same time
• Disable the maintenance task running for MDB
• If the above measures fail, the database might be corrupt. Repair the damaged database using Eseutil utility. You can use /p switch to repair the database.

If a valid database backup is present, you should use it instead of using Eseutil /p utility as this can cause corrupted pages to delete. Another safe database repair option is to use Exchange Server Repair tools.

Exchange Server Recovery software are highly advanced tools, which use powerful scanning algorithms to repair the damaged Exchange database. Such utilities provide you graphically rich user interface and hence, are easy to implement.

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is a powerful utility to provide systematic repair for corrupted Exchange databases. It supports Exchange Server 5.5, 2000 and 2003. The tool can perform safe Exchange Recovery for all database objects and extracts user mailboxes in individual PST files.