need help: corrupt exchange DB

[booyaa]

To sum it up I've apparently had a corrupt exchange database for over 1 month.
Online backups were happening without a problem, but online defrag has been failing and we are getting close to the 16GB limit.

Microsoft suggested User Action: ExMerge your data to .pst files, delete the database, create a blank database, and then ExMerge your databases to a blank database.

The store is still mounted and I have exmerged all the boxes to PST. I suppose I'm a bit of an exchange noob, only been using it for 1 year, small office, and had no formal training. Can I just rename and copy the MDBDATA folder elsewhere? Will exchange recreate the DB? And then I suppose I would exmerge it all back. (it seems too easy :/)

I do not have the software/hardware around to setup a test network at this point in time.

Thanks again [H]

 

[GreNME]

I'm not sure you're in the correct forum, but I can do what I can. I recently learned a lot from having to troubleshoot some Exchange DB problems here, and wound up getting assistance from MS business critical support to fix it.

What do you mean you have a corrupt database? Where are you getting errors? Have you tried to perform an offline defrag?

 

[GreNME]

Also, there is a better chance that you could rebuild your database from the log files. Whatever you do, make sure you have good, full backups of those log files. They saved my rear-end during my database crisis.

 

[booyaa]

sorry if this is the wrong forum, I did a search on exchange and found this forum has the most posts regarding exchange.

Event Viewer:
Information Store (2188) Online defragmentation of database 'C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\mdbdata\priv1.edb' terminated prematurely after encountering unexpected error -327. The next time online defragmentation is started on this database, it will resume from the point of interruption.

Error -327 indicates JET_errBadPageLink and Error -338 indicates JET_errBadParentPageLink. A bad page link error indicates corruption in the database at the Jet level.

I don't have much in the way of log files because online backups were occurring successfully. So they were merged into the backup. The store is still up and working but it will soon hit the 16GB limit because online defrags aren't running.
I haven't done an offline defrag yet, it might be able to buy me some extra time but if it is corrupted I doubt it would succeed.

I do have a brick level backup of every box, I don't think the corruption carries over to those.

 

[GreNME]

Try the offline defrag first. Chances are there is something wrong that the online defrag can't mitigate and is shooting the error. I'm not an expert with Exchange, though, so I couldn't tell you the exact nature of that error you have.