How to Perform Recovery From An Exchange Server Crash? Simple & Clear Solution

Summary: Are you facing difficulties to perform recovery from an Exchange Server crash. If yes, then this write-up is only for you. Here users will know why this happen, its causes, and various ways to deal with this Microsoft Exchange Server crash.

MS Exchange Server is one of the best product which is used by millions of users in the world, IT organization, and other industry verticals. It contains crucial data from an individual user to the large companies and to protect this data from any disaster as well as threats.

The IT administrators create an Exchange Server disaster recovery plan in such case like – Microsoft Exchange Server crash, EDB gets corrupted/damaged, etc… There are other issue like hardware and software which make the server not working anymore.

In a situation like this users are unable to access their Exchange database because they are dismounted and when one tries to mount the EDB back they receive so many errors. Sometimes, because of sudden power failure or planned restart the Exchange database is unable to mount. Restarting or rebooting the Exchange Server solves many problems every time but unfortunately, there are times when users restart the server, the Exchange database won’t mount.

What are the Causes Of Exchange Server Crash?

1. Power Outage
2. Force restart
3. Virus and Malware
4. Hardware & software failure
5. Problem in updation or Installation
6. No space/size left out in database drive
7. Third-party software/application which isn’t friendly with Exchange, etc…

Recovery From An Exchange Server Crash – Easy or Not?

Due to several corruption or damage, it is not possible to assume that how longer it take to recover data from Microsoft Exchange Server crash/disaster. But this makes one thing loud and clear that it is not a very easy task.

MS Exchange Server consists of Exchange database file and log file. It is very important to keep these both file safe and secure because when the server crashes, there may be a change that EDB file gets corrupted and data will be permanently lost. The server is fully dependent on Active directory and the other way around.

How to Handle the Process Of Recovery From An Exchange Server Crash?

If any of this situation arises with MS Exchange Server, you should be in a calm state. The first thing to do is that copy the Exchange database in its current state on the temporary storage before stating the recovery.

We are doing this because during the recovery time if any of the Exchange database damaged then your EDB may end-up in non-recovery state. But if it not corrupted then you recover it easily by using the tools provided here.

Use ESEUTIL Utility to Recover Database From An Exchange Server Crash

First users have to check the state of database whether it is in Clean or Exchange dirty shutdown state. To do this, use the eseutil /mh cmdlet given below:

If the state of the Microsoft Exchange Server database is dirty shutdown then the user have to perform the soft recovery and hard recovery in Exchange 2016/2013 database. For soft recovery you can use the eseutil /r command which is given below:

Note: Using this utility for recovery there is no guarantee that you can recover full Exchange database. There might be a chance that your database end-up with more damage in it.

If the above command doesn’t work then you have to perform hard recovery by using the eseutil /p cmdlet.

In this solution, users have to face data loss which is permanent and performing hard recovery Microsoft also will not help you to recover the Exchange database. Then again the check the database state, if it is clean shutdown then you can mount the database again.

Another option is that you can use the last healthy backup to restore the Exchange Server. But this will end-up with loss of data.

Use Alternative Method

You can use the SysTools Exchange Server Recovery Software that easily repair EDB file from major and minor corruption without any data loss. Users should not have to use any command to recover the corrupted offline/dismounted Exchange database back. It provides dual scan mode options i.e. Quick and Advance scan which automatically recovers & repair Exchange mailbox and EDB file from corruption in a hassle freeway.

Also, this utility allows you to export the healthy as well as recovered Exchange mailboxes to the Live Exchange Server mailboxes, Office 365 and PST, EML, HTML, PDF, MSG, MBOX file formats.

Key Features Of Automated Software

1. Support public & private EDB and STM file
2. Extract mailbox from EDB file Exchange 2016/2013/2010
3. Preview Microsoft EDB mailbox data items before conversion
4. Preserve original folder hierarchy and keep metadata intact
5. Date and Categories filter option convert selective Exchange mailbox items
6. Decrypt emails (SMIME/OpenPGP) from Exchange mailboxes in batch
7. Suitable with all Exchange Server, Windows OS, and MS Outlook version

Bringing It All Together

This write-up provides complete information on recovery from an Exchange Server crash, its reason, and methods to perform the recovery. If the Exchange database file is severely corrupted or damaged then you can use the above-mentioned software which easily recover deleted mailbox after retention period and corrupt offline EDB & STM file with no data loss. Then user can export the Exchange mailboxes into the Live Exchange 2016/2013/2010/2007/2003 Server mailboxes after recovery.