Microsoft Exchange Server is an exchange server that is server-side of the client-server product. It stores all the information of emails, contacts, calendar entries in an EDB (Exchange Information Store Database) file. In addition, you can access Exchange Server using Windows-based mobile devices as well. Sometimes, you are unable to mount the Exchange Server because of EDB file corruption. The reasons that lead to EDB corruption are human errors, database header corruption, virus infections, oversized EDB file. In such cases, you should try to find the cause of corruption and perform appropriate operations to repair corrupt EDB file. If you are unable to do this, then you should use a third-party EDB recovery software to recover EDB file.

Consider a scenario wherein you are unable to mount the Exchange Store in Exchange Server 2007. An error message is displayed, that is:...

Unified Messaging (UM) is the integration of various communications media and electronic messaging technologies into a single store, while giving full access from different devices. The unified messaging products for Exchange Server have the capability to store all types of messages (like voicemails, faxes, e-mails etc.) in one system. The UM solutions for Exchange Server require Exchange database to be intact in order to get started. There can be situations when a unified messaging utility may stop. Apart from other reasons, you can deduce this behavior for database corruption. In such situations, if you don't have any valid data backup, an EDB Recovery solution is required.

The following scenario will help you understand such problems better. Consider you deploy a Unified Messaging system in your Exchange Server environment. You observe that the UM utility cannot start. Later, you observe that Microsoft Exchange database is also unable to mount and reports an error, such as below:...

Microsoft Exchange Server databases suffer from two type of inconsistencies: Logical and Physical. Logical database corruption is caused due to reasons like deletion of Edb.log file and write-back caching, which generally introduce errors in B-trees and other logical structures. On the other hand, physical database corruption root from hardware failure like reasons that usually affect the database pages. Logical database corruption is hard to be detected by database administrator when compared to physical database corruption. However, at times when Exchange Server tries to read data from a corrupted database, it reports an error (as mentioned further). The corruption can be logical or physical and you need to apply EDB Recovery techniques to solve these problems.

As an instance, you might receive the below error message with your Exchange Server database:

“msgidJetDatabaseCorrupted.”...

Microsoft Exchange Server Calendaring agent is the tool that allows performing several scheduling tasks, which include creating and saving appointments etc. For the tool to function properly, it is required that Exchange directory structure remains excluded from antivirus scanning. Another disadvantage of scanning your Exchange Server directory structure is that it may also lead to corruption of the most important files in your Information Store, such as .edb, .stm, .chk, and .log files. Since most of your important data resides in your .edb files, EDB Recovery becomes essential while such instances.

To illustrate such scenarios with Calendaring agent, suppose you try to save few appointments in MS Exchange Server. Your observe that Calendaring agent fails to function properly. Some or all of the calendar information are lost. Additionally, you receive the similar entries logging in application event log of Exchange Server:

Event ID: 8206...

Transaction log files contain the uncommitted data of an Exchange database. When an EDB (Exchange database) file crashes, the transaction log files act as disaster recovery means as they bring the database to a consistent state. For these reasons, it is recommended to store transaction logs on a different drive to avoid disk failure consequences that can affect the database. At times, Exchange Server observes issues when writing data to the drive where log files are stored. This can occur out of several reasons, such as file system issues, antivirus software problems, disk concerns etc. You need to troubleshoot the root cause. However, if the database is still inconsistent, you should restore the damaged database from backup or apply Exchange eseutil tool. Alternatively, you can opt for using an EDB Recovery Software to repair the damaged database.

For example, you might receive the below error with your Exchange Server:...