How to Mount Exchange Information Store Database?

Storage Group on MS Exchange Server comprises of two components: Mailbox Store and Public folder Store. The numbers of these versions vary depending upon the version of Exchange Server. While the mailbox folder keeps a record of all users as well as system mailboxes, the public folder store that contains emails, forums, posts etc, basically the content of a public folder.

For an organization, single mailbox store and public folder store is sufficient but as the size of database grows, the database can be divided into small parts so that ease in accessibility is attainable and it helps in maintaining backups to some extent. When an Exchange edition is installed in the system, Storage Groups get created by default.

The mailbox store and Public folder store comprise of two types of database files

• Priv.edb/ Pub.edb: This file contains rich text database like mail messages, attachments and headers.
• Priv.stm/ Pub.stm: This file contains multimedia database in MIME format (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions).

Therefore, for an Exchange administrator, Storage Group (popularly known as Information Store) is very important. Due to any reason if the information store on Exchange is deviated from its normal functioning, it leads to Exchange Information Store Service termination inaccessibility of database stored in priv. edb, priv. stm, pub. edb and pub. edb files.

Let us consider a scenario to explain the consequences of Storage Group corruption:

Say, you make an attempt to mount the database on Server but failed. In addition an error message is received that states: "Unable to Mount the Mailbox Store with error c104173c The Information Store is Busy". This Error message probably emerges on screen when any of the database file, priv.edb or pub.edb gets corrupted.

There are many other Reasons that are responsible for database mounting issues:

• Exchange Server database reaches 16GB storage limit.
• Transaction log files get altered or deleted due to file level antivirus program.
• The Active Directory Service has certain permissions. Changing them might cause problems.
• There is some trouble with the hardware configuration.
• Incorrect Administrative Group Names are displayed post disaster recovery.
• The disk space is not sufficient where the database gets stored which is to be mounted.

How to ensure that the EDB file database is safe?

First of all, check out if the database is consistent or not. For this, run Eseutil/mh command. Depending upon the results, execute following activities:

• If the result displays "Clean Shutdown", then from Exchsvrmbddata folder, delete all log files.
• If the result displays "Dirty Shutdown", then utilize Eseutil/r command line for soft database recovery.
• If the first two steps fail to bring the database in a consistent state, then Eseutil/p command should be used.

Meanwhile, when the aforementioned commands are used, there is a threat to Exchange database. They can result in data loss of Log file emails. Also, these built-in utilities can be used with rare editions of MS Exchange Server. When you get stuck under such troublesome circumstances, use of Exchange Recovery software will help to work around database mounting issues. The powerful scanning algorithms at the back end of the tool guarantees absolute results with original data integrity maintained.