eseutil command freezing the Exchange Server

Hi,

What version of Exchange are you running?

Are you dismounting the mailbox store before running the defrag? eseutil /d is an offline defrag and is different from the standard mailbox management that runs online. As long as you dismount the store before issuing the command there is no issue with offline defrag over LAN, it may just take longer.

Agreed with other poster, in that it could just be taking an excessive amount of time, however, it sounds like the first two went fine and only way that would happen is if you had taken them offline.  That said

1. please explain what you mean by the Exchange Server Freezes up

2. What is the size of the different Exchange Databases you successfully defragged vs the ones that you are attempting to defrag?

3. Have you checked your event viewer to see if any errors are being logged?

4. How much disk space do you have free (please list all drives and available space)

5.  Are the EDB and Logs located on the same drive?

Thanks for responding to my post

to answer all the question

The version exchange server is 2003 running of Windows Server 2003 too

I did not unmount the mailbox...I have only stop the exchange service

The first two were around 100 gig each went great

The last three are between 160G and 240Gig

What means by server freezing, it means even at the console I can not connect.  I had to physically reboot the server with on/off power

No log in the event viewer.  no error recorded

The system I was defragmenting was having 1T of free space

Yes the EDB and the Logs are located on the same drive

Like I said I did not defrag the new file to the server because the server was having 40Gig of hard disk space.

I m not an expert on Exchange.  I need some guideline here

How can I dismount a mailbox
is it ok to only stop the exchange service.
What are the right steps for defragmenting a mailbox


Thanks for your help.

Hi Lucid8

Thanks for helping me

1)  No I did not see anything in the event viewer.  I check many time no error showing
2)  no I am not directly on the server when I do defrag, I VPN to the network and Remote Desktop to the Exchange Server 2003
3)  I am not on the console but from Remote Desktop I map my computer to do the defrag
4)  After 5% it freeze the server.  I try twice thinking I have made a mistake but same result
5)  to be honest I dont know about the disk activity,  the server was frozen, ctrl+alt+del did not do anything I reboot right away
6)  Sure I will not stop the service.  The Microsoft article is the one I was working with but the second one is much better.  I will follow this on this week-end.

I keep you posted

Thanks again

ok sounds good and

1.  When connecting via RDP, are you leaving the session open the entire time, logging out, breaking the connection and then attempting to reconnect later or?

2. there have been some goofy issues that happen when using RDP so you may want to consider trying this directly at the console to see if it performs differently.  I realize its a pain to go into the office to make this happen but it may server you better in the end OR you can try to use something like the free version of  VNC which then puts you directly at the console http://www.realvnc.com/products/download.html

I am closing the RDP, It takes 12 to 14 hours I am not leaving my session open

Thanks for the suggestion, I will use vnc next time

Keep you posted

OK, keep me updated on how things progress and hopefully things will be successful this next round!

Like suggest,

I have dismount the database
Work from console instead of using RDP

And the defrag went with now error

Thanks so much

Excellent to hear, thanks for the points and let me know if I can ever be of additional assistance, just check my profile for contact information.