Information store not starting - corrupt

[cfwdude]

i showed up to the office this morning to find my sole AD/Exchange server bluescreened with a nice shrill alarm going off. After rebooting, i was prompted to run the repair utility to fix the corrupt file. Through the recovery console, i ran a chkdsk (which found errors, I did not use the /f switch to fix them) and ran fixboot to repair the boot sector. Fortunately, it boots, and active directory and all services are running, except exchange. ESEUTIL shows the database was shutdown dirty, and the recovery option states there is corruption, and the operation cannot be performed.
In addition, my backup server took a timely crap, so my most recent backup of exchange is days old.

Here's the question(s)

1. will running the /p repair option with ESEUTIL cause more data loss than restoring old data?

2.if i run the repair, and lose too much data, I assume I can then restore from backup over the repaired DB?

3> Is there another way to repair the DB or force start the Information Store so I can at least run an Exmerge or something?

 

[ACraib]

you might want to have a look at

http://www.officerecovery.com/exchangeserver/index.htm

for a way to getthe data from the edb and stm files.

Hope this helps

Andrew

 

[cfwdude]

i am curently trying out the demo version of the recommended app. Even if that shows promise, I have no guarantee that my company will be willing to purchase an $800 solution. (even though it sounds like a great investment!)

Has anyone been in a similar situation, with a corrupt Information store, and run ESEUTIL with the repair switch, and if so what were the results? Lotsa data loss? just a little?

I would just like to know what to expect, although i am prepared for the worst.

Thanks

 

[cfwdude]

ACriab-
have you ran this app with large .edb files? I have tried the demo on my 1.8G .edb file, and recieve virtual memory errors after about 4 hours of processing the file. I did had success on my smaller public.edb file.

thanks for your suggestion, it doesn't look as though there are too many recovery options for corrupted exchange databases.

If anyone has dealt with any other recovery options, I would like to hear your suggestions/experiences.

Thanks!!

 

[zoeythecat]

any useful errors in event viewer?

 

[cfwdude]

errors in relation to the Exchange crap out, or the recovery app? the recovery app gave an information entry that I was low on virtual memory, but that's it.

As far as the Exchange goes, no, there are no useful errors in the event log, and I have tried runnint the recovery switch, which tells me my database has been shutdown dirty, and cannot continue. I also tried the repair option, which completes successfully, however, the Information Store still will not start, I still recieve the message that the database is corrupt.

yeehaw, i love my job...

 

[peter405]

As this is the sole AD/Exchange server, I'd probably cut my losses, restore from the backup, and use this as an excuse to get a second server. You use the second box as an extra DC for AD and Exchange server. Gives you a place to queue mail till you bring your "downed" system back online and half the organization still has email. When your get your broken system back online, mail queued on the good server delivers, and there is no gap in delivery/availability for incoming SMTP.

Worst case, you can restore your old system from backup offline and dump mailboxes to PST files. Create new mailboxes for the users on your good Exchange box and push the PST files up to them.

You'll hear budget folks complain about cost, but how costly is it to have your entire Email system and Authentication system and fileserver and printserver and whatever else on one box when that box is down?

Even if you are perfect IT Guru, hardware dies, software crashes, s..t happens. Redundancy is cheap. Bet there is more than one fire extinguisher in your building and how many fires have you had?