EDB corruption and access problems in Exchange Server

Read time 5 minutes

At times, when you try retrieving your data from MS Exchange Server, the process fails, and you receive error message mentioned below:

This error message means that you might lose your important data and this condition is the result of one of the following reasons:

• Either you do not have required permissions to access the database
• Some of the precious Exchange Server files are missing
• EDB database files are corrupt and data has become inaccessible.

In order to fix this problem, you can have appropriate permission from the administrator and try again. Either you can repair your Exchange Server by using Eseutil.exe tool or Exchange Server can be repaired by using third party Exchange Server repair tool.

Corruption of Exchange Server database is a very crucial situation and it needs to be repaired as early as it can be.

Eseutil.exe is an inbuilt Exchange Server utility that enables user to verify and repair .edb files. However, if you want to fix this corruption error then you will have to perform EDB recovery. Eseutil repair process involves rebuilding the Exchange database and eliminating the invalid data during the process. Before starting running the Eseutil application, users must ensure the following requirements.

• Exchange Database backup is taken
• Exchange Database is dismounted (Run Dismount-Database –Identity <database name> in PowerShell)
• Minimum 20% of total disk space is there

These are mandatory requirements, and after fulfilling these, you can start the repair process through Eseutil commands. You can find and open the Eseutil application by visiting this path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin

Check your database state by running this command in Eseutil application

If the status is Exchange Dirty Shutdown and the output shows missing logs, you can perform soft recovery by running this cmdlet.

Check the status again and If soft recovery does not work, perform the hard recovery. Use this cmdlet.

Users can recheck the database state and can find if the Exchange Database is in a healthy state or not. However, one cannot guarantee that the database gets repaired or no data loss happened during the process.
Better is to try a reliable, professional EDB recovery solution to access the Exchange data once again without any data loss.

Kernel for Exchange Server recovers mailboxes from corrupt, damaged and inaccessible EDB files of MS Exchange Server. Moreover, it recovers all emails, notes, contacts, journal, calendar entries, and other items from the inaccessible mailboxes. Exchange Server recovery software supports exchange database recovery from EDB files created using Exchange Server 5.0, 5.5, 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019. It is user-friendly and easy to use software that ensures high accuracy in EDB recovery. Let us know it’s working.

1. Run the software application and choose Offline EDB as a source from the given options. Click Next to move further.
   
2. Add the EDB file from the system by browsing it. You can also search the EDB in specified drive with Search option. Click Next.
   
3. Select the scanning mode. It will start scanning the EDB file to perform recovery. Within seconds, the EDB mailboxes will get retrieved. Click on the displayed Live Exchange option to add it as the destination. Click Next to add the live Exchange details.
   
4. Add the live Exchange Server details like domain id, username, and password, etc. Finally, click Next. Select the mailboxes you want to add and then click Next.
   
5. Now, both the source (EDB) and destination (live Exchange) mailboxes are added. You can easily Copy All Mailboxes from source to destination by right-clicking on the respective root-folders (you can also move desired mailbox or folders as per your choice with the given filters and options).
   
6. You can now Paste all Mailboxes to the destination.
   

Hence, the recovery is performed in just 5-6 steps through this software.

Conclusion

EDB corruption causes mailboxes data to access issues in the Exchange Server, which can be fixed either manually through eseutil.exe utility. But this method is not so reliable. By performing recovery with advanced Exchange Recovery solution, you can retrieve the entire data from Exchange database files.