Very Computer

I'm confronted with the following sutuation:

In my company we're running on one dual-processor NT Server running Exchange 5.0, it is the only server present.

Because of quite heavy damages to the registry and an unfortunate disission to implement an IIS 4 -beta, the server has become quite unstable.

What would be the "best" way to "renew" the server? In other words: I want to reinstall NT & Exchange while mainaining the present Information stores & mailboxes.............

I've been thinking about the folowing process:

    a.. Install a temporary server and let it join the present site
    b.. Migrate all mailboxes and Public Folders to this machine
    c.. Reinstall the original server
    d.. Mirgrate everything back again to the original server
Would this be a viable option? Or is there perhaps a more efficient aproach?

Thanks & Regards,

Iwan van der Kleyn

Iwan,

What you suggest would work if you are using the Enterprise version of
Exchange.  Be sure, however to read KB aricle Q152959 - How to Remove the
First Exchange Server in a Site.

For other approaches, you may want to check out the Exchange Backup and
Restore white paper at
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/support/deployment/planning/deploy....
&B=1
as it contains a wealth of information on the safe handling of Exchange
information stores.

Regards,
--
Ray Sundstrom
MCSE, Exchange MVP



    I'm confronted with the following sutuation:

    In my company we're running on one dual-processor NT Server running
Exchange 5.0, it is the only server present.

    Because of quite heavy damages to the registry and an unfortunate
disission to implement an IIS 4 -beta, the server has become quite unstable.

    What would be the "best" way to "renew" the server? In other words: I
want to reinstall NT & Exchange while mainaining the present Information
stores & mailboxes.............

    I've been thinking about the folowing process:

        a.. Install a temporary server and let it join the present site
        b.. Migrate all mailboxes and Public Folders to this machine
        c.. Reinstall the original server
        d.. Mirgrate everything back again to the original server
    Would this be a viable option? Or is there perhaps a more efficient
aproach?

    Thanks & Regards,

    Iwan van der Kleyn

Be careful that circular logging (the Exchange server default) is turned off
before you try this approach or you may find you have no backup at all!

--
Ray Sundstrom
MCSE, Exchange MVP



    1.  Use an Exchange-aware backup package to do an online backup the Dir
and IS.
    2.  Format & reinstall NT and any service packs.
    3.  Install Exchange, using the same ORG, SITE, SERVER names, and
Service Account.
    4.  Restore from tape.

You're not even close -- it is a rather delicate process outlined in Microsoft published "Disaster Recovery - Part I". You can get this document in http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evalgd.htm

In summary, the steps are:
    1.. Do an online full backup of your IS & DS using NTBACKUP.EXE in Exchange Server 5.0 CD.
    2.. Write down all Exchange configurations, including the location (drive/directory) of your exchange data.
    3.. Reinstall NT: same server name, same server configuration (PDC/BDC/Server), same SP.
    4.. Install Exchange 5.0: run SETUP.EXE /R, run optimizer and choose to move files to original location in step 2.
    5.. Apply same Exchange 5.0 patch: UPDATE.EXE /R.
    6.. Restore IS & DS: select "Delete existing files" & "Start Services after restore" in NTBACKUP.EXE.
It is VERY IMPORTANT that you use NTBACKUP.EXE from Exchange 5.0 CD.

Good Luck!!

    I'm confronted with the following sutuation:

    In my company we're running on one dual-processor NT Server running Exchange 5.0, it is the only server present.

    Because of quite heavy damages to the registry and an unfortunate disission to implement an IIS 4 -beta, the server has become quite unstable.

    What would be the "best" way to "renew" the server? In other words: I want to reinstall NT & Exchange while mainaining the present Information stores & mailboxes.............

    I've been thinking about the folowing process:

        a.. Install a temporary server and let it join the present site
        b.. Migrate all mailboxes and Public Folders to this machine
        c.. Reinstall the original server
        d.. Mirgrate everything back again to the original server
    Would this be a viable option? Or is there perhaps a more efficient aproach?

    Thanks & Regards,

    Iwan van der Kleyn

Shawn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shawn D. Connelly, (the ubiquitous) Network Engineer

Notes: Remove the ".delete.this." from the suffix of my email address.
       For assurance that I will read your reply, please copy your
       public posting to my email account.

Search the technet for the author "Pagano" and you will see the "MS Exchange
Disaster Recovery Part 1".

NOTE: This is a reposting, I didn't see any responses to my first
posting of this message.  My primary question is: Are there any
disaster recovery tools available for Exchange server's dir.edb and
priv.edb databases?  

I am aware of Microsoft's mediocre utilities: edbutil and isinteg.
Both of these program have been of no use to me.  Microsoft tech.
engineers have even admitted to me that these repair utilities are
very basic at best!

I am facing a complete rebuild if I cannot find a way to correct the
database errors.

History (original posting)

Tech. info:  Exchange Server 5 (SP2), NT 4 (SP3), PPro 200, 8gb on
Adaptec SCSI, two 100Base-T NICs, 41 clients using Outlook.

My problems began this past Feb. when I was the victim of several
Exchange Server v5 bugs.

Primarily: allowing an infinite loop to occur in a client mailbox,
ignoring the mailbox max. size limit, a memory leak in STORES.EXE and
a host of other problems before SP2 for Exchange v5.0.  

A short history: A client accidently created an infinite loop which
caused his mailbox to fill up to 280000 messages and well over 900mb
in size (before I found the root clause).  After deleting the mailbox
(BTW, Outlook crashes on mailboxes of this size!!) and performing a
defrag (w/edbutil), Exchange server has been the constant source of
stress for me.  The defrag process seemed to have corrupted the
priv.edb.

Since March, 8 clients (out of 41) have reported problems accessing
some folders in their private mailboxes.  I am one of them too.  I my
example (same symptoms with the other clients), I have a folder
(called tech.notes) which contains five sub-folders.  From the
navigation tree (Outlook) there is a '+' sign next to 'tech.notes',
indicating it's a parent to sub-folders.  Double clicking on
'tech-notes' makes the '+' sign disappear and doesn't show the
sub-folders contained within.   To make this more interesting, I had
created a short cut (on the Outlook Bar) to one of the sub-folders
within 'tech.notes'.  Clicking on this shortcut reveals it's messages.
Clearly this proves that the messages are intact...somewhere in that
large priv.edb file!  

Additionally, my inbox rules are still (automatically) sending
messages into these folders that I can no longer access.

I've tried to export my entire (or the bad pieces) mailbox to a .pst
file but it doesn't see the sub-folders.  Moving bad folders to an
on-line .pst folder yields the error, "Unable to move the items,
Unable to Delete this folder (I can!), - mumbles some erroneous
message about permissions.

Yet, even though I have 50 clients not experiencing any difficulties,
there seems to be obvious data corruption in the priv.edb and/or
dir.edb.  Running isinteg (-priv -fix) will generate a 'ref table
construction on INID returned JET_errReadVerifyFailure' error at test
8 of 24.  Note that my hardware is tested and fully functional (i.e.
it's not hard drive corruption).  Using the defrag/repair options in
edbutil truncates the entire 1.3gb priv.edb down to 8k - yes...pretty
useless!!  

I'm going in circles....my last two options are to try xmerge (of
course this tools doesn't copy all the stores info!!) and last
re-build!!  Help please someone!  Does anyone know more than the MS
tech people?

Thank you,
Shawn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shawn D. Connelly, (the ubiquitous) Network Engineer

Notes: Remove the ".delete.this." from the suffix of my email address.
       For assurance that I will read your reply, please copy your
       public posting to my email account.

Hi Shawn.

The difficulties you've enumerated appear to be the result of a table
corruption inside the Exchange database.  While the table may have been
corrupted during your deletion of the massive mail folder, it also may be
caused by a poorly documented problem with Exchange.

What's clear is that the databases are hosed.  Despite the relative size of
your database, the master index is sufficiently confused so as to prevent
you from every seeing those files again.

You mention that you're making use of an Adaptec SCSI controller with what
seems to be a pretty smokin' computer.  Did you use Adaptec's EZ SCSI
program to disable write back caching, or did you choose to leave the write
back cache active in an effort to improve throughput?

Enabled write back caching, which is the default setting, can produce
profound errors in an Exchange server, or in any database system.  A write
back cache holds pages that the OS thinks have been written to disk, then
writes them to disk en masse at a later time.  If it works right (which
means is the drives work 100% of the time), then it offers a big benefit in
terms of performance.  If it doesn't work right, though, there's no way for
the cache to tell the OS that it lost a page.

If you lose enough pages, then you hose your master table.

My best advice is to find the oldest backup you have and run an integrity
check of that database.  Then try doing integrity checks of more recent
databases until you find a master index that can't be repaired.

Not very reassuring, is it?  Sorry.

Cheers!
Dana

Quote:>NOTE: This is a reposting, I didn't see any responses to my first
>posting of this message.  My primary question is: Are there any
>disaster recovery tools available for Exchange server's dir.edb and
>priv.edb databases?

>I am facing a complete rebuild if I cannot find a way to correct the
>database errors.

>A short history: A client accidently created an infinite loop which
>caused his mailbox to fill up to 280000 messages and well over 900mb
>in size (before I found the root clause).  After deleting the mailbox
>(BTW, Outlook crashes on mailboxes of this size!!) and performing a
>defrag (w/edbutil), Exchange server has been the constant source of
>stress for me.  The defrag process seemed to have corrupted the
>priv.edb.

>Since March, 8 clients (out of 41) have reported problems accessing
>some folders in their private mailboxes.  I am one of them too.  I my
>example (same symptoms with the other clients), I have a folder
>(called tech.notes) which contains five sub-folders.  From the
>navigation tree (Outlook) there is a '+' sign next to 'tech.notes',
>indicating it's a parent to sub-folders.  Double clicking on
>'tech-notes' makes the '+' sign disappear and doesn't show the
>sub-folders contained within.   To make this more interesting, I had
>created a short cut (on the Outlook Bar) to one of the sub-folders
>within 'tech.notes'.  Clicking on this shortcut reveals it's messages.
>Clearly this proves that the messages are intact...somewhere in that
>large priv.edb file!

We've been through some massive corruption issues like this as well.
The fix we've had when the database is this hosed is to first confirm that
dir.edb is intact by using edbutil /mh <path to dir.edb>  > logfile
If it's consistant then you should be able to recover.

Get exmerge from the exchange reskit.
Install exchange/outlook client on the exchange server
log in as the service admin account
use exmerge to export all accounts to PST files
rename priv.edb (or delete it)
start information store (will create new priv.edb file)
You may have to run a full ds/is consistancy check (be careful with this,
allow FULL replication to occur first!!)
use exmerge to reimport the pst's

Gotchas with this are you lose rules, single instance store, autoarchiving
is
screwed for awhile, and a few others I can't remember.  Check the exmerge
readme file

--
Elton Tucker  MCSE ASE