A Microsoft Exchange Server database can get corrupt owing to several reasons, the most common being hardware reasons. In some cases, database corruption may remain undetected until you run a utility like backup software. In such circumstances, a user needs to restore the database from backup or run some Exchange Server Repair measures.

For instance, when trying to perform backup of Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 SP3 public folder store or mailbox store, a user may have an unsuccessful backup procedure. So, each time when he attempts to do so, he may encounter error like:

“WARNING: Portions of “\Mailbox Store (MAIL)” cannot be read. The backed up data is corrupt or incomplete”

Additionally, the application log shows various entries, such as:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: NTBackup
Event Category: None
Event ID: 8012
Date: 13/09/2005
Time: 4:24:08 PM
User: N/A
Computer: MAIL
Description:
The ‘Microsoft Information Store’ returned ‘Error returned from an ESE
function call (d).
‘ from a call to ‘HrESEBackupClose()’ additional data ‘-’

Apart from the above event ID, other entries are event ID 217, 478, 215, and 222.

Cause

The above symptoms is most probably the outcome of Exchange database corruption that doesn’t allow you to backup the database.

Solution

In case of Exchange Database corruption, you can try solutions as given below:

  • If you use Enterprise edition of Exchange Server, you can move all the mailboxes from corrupted store to a new one.

  • In other cases, the best solution is to restore the database from backup and to replay the log files

  • If you don’t have a suitable backup to restore, you can run eseutil /p repair utility to fix database corruption. Keep in mind to backup all the data prior to running this tool as chances are that your important data may get deleted.

  • In case, none of the above methods works, you should opt for a third-party MS Exchange Repair utility. An Exchange Server Repair utility can run most effective and safe scanning algorithms to extract all user data from corrupted Exchange databases.

Exchange Repair Software is a professional utility created to repair corrupted or damaged Exchange databases and restore the mailboxes to a user-intended location. This MS Exchange Repair tool supports MS Exchange Server 2007, 2003, 2000, and 5.5 and also recovers deleted mailboxes. Another noticeable feature is its recoverability for STM data.