How to repair and recover damaged database files in Microsoft Exchange Server?

Microsoft Exchange server is considered to be one of the best and fastest email server applications in the world. An Information Store is very important and essential component of the MS Exchange server that is used to store both Mailbox and Public store data. The Information store uses Exchange database files to effectively manage the stored users’ data. An Exchange database file tends to be damaged or corrupted due to various reasons like sudden server down, hardware failure, abrupt exit from Exchange Server.

As corruption of database file is an unwanted hurdle that halts the smooth working of an organization so it is essential to find the root of cause and take the effective method to solve the issue. Microsoft has provided some built-in tools that can be used to solve the corruption issues. If these built-in utilities are not able to repair your damaged database file, then you can use a third-party Exchange recovery program to do so.

When an Exchange database file gets corrupted, it becomes impossible to mount the Information store in Exchange Server. Additionally, various error messages may appear on the window. Following are few symptoms which show that the information store database may be damaged:

How to resolve the issues:

Following are few ways which can be used to work around the problem:

A) Restore from backup: If you have clean and updated backup file, you should restore the database with its.

B) Run ESEUTIL utility: To repair the corrupt database file, Microsoft offers ESEUTIL command line tool. So, if the backup file is either not clean or not updated, then you should use this built-in repair application.

Note: When Eseutil /p (a hard repair command) utility is used to perform database repair, it removes anything it fails to understand. i.e you may experience some data loss situations after using it. Moreover, there is no method to identify how much your data is going to be lost.

C) Run ISINTEG utility: After running the ESEUTIL repair tool, you should run the ISINTEG utility. This command line tool helps to rebuilds and fixes the errors occurred in the information store after repair and restoration.

However if the Exchange database file remains inaccessible even after trying above said methods, then try to recover Exchange database using a third party Exchange server recovery software. Such tools are specially designed for this purpose. Stellar Phoenix Exchange Recovery is one such highly useful application that successfully repairs and recoups all data from damaged Exchange Server in only three simple steps.