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Rebuild Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Database after hard disk error

We received a disk error on the hard drive containing our Exchange Server 2003 database. The error message indicated that the exchange private edb file was likely corrupted and would therefore need to be restored from a previous backup. Tried to copy (offline) the priv1.edb file which failed when it was about 95% completed. Tried to fix it with the Exchange utilities ISINTEG and ESEUTIL but they failed almost immediately. I have tried EXMERGE to create PST files for each user but that fails on the larger (>2GB) mailboxes. Found that using Microsoft Outlook 2003 "FILE/EXPORT" function, that the mail files successfully get exported to a PST file. Also, note that there is an OST file on each users local drive. Currently, the Exchange databases and log files reside on a disk drive of their own (for performance reasons) which has been partitioned as the "M" Disk. The "Microsoft Exchange Information Store" Service is still running and seems to be working except for the rare restart of the the service.

I know that since the hard disk had an error, it is best to put the database on another hard drive and retire the current one. I believe that the best solution is to MOVE the database to another drive and rebuild the database from scratch by importing each users PST file (created by OUTLOOK). However, I am not sure of the procedure to do that. I think if I do the "MOVE DATABASE" function from Exchange Server the move will likely fail. Can you delete and recreate the PRIV1.EDB and PRIV1.STM ? What would be the best way to fix this problem? Note that there are only 15 users on the server (Microsoft SBS 2003).

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Well, so if i understood this correctly - you are going to move your database to another drive since the original drive has gone corrupt.

If that is true - then the steps written above holds true. Wait ....you also mentioned...

"Can you delete and recreate the PRIV1.EDB and PRIV1.STM ? What would be the best way to fix this problem? Note that there are only 15 users on the server (Microsoft SBS 2003)"

Why do you want to play with deletion and recreation - any specific reason, this should never be tried under any circumstance - if you have 15 or 1500 users.

Also, I am interested which errors are you talking about

"The error message indicated that the exchange private edb file was likely corrupted and would therefore need to be restored from a previous backup"

Please do paste that information.

In the mean time take a backup of information store using NTBackup.