Dear the Dearest, Could someone please explain to me how an exchange server database file "EDB" converted from 80GB of size to 0Bytes???!! It is a Huge Problem. I was using an exchange server on server1 and there is a backup for this server, a week ago I deployed exchange server "Server 2", move the mailboxes to this server and there is no backup for this server yet. I cannot move the mailboxes of users since the "server 2" database is offline. All I have is Backup of "Server 1" and Logs of "Server 2". Please guys I need some HELP urgently. Regards,

So you had server1 that had user mailboxes and the DB was 80GB. You created server2 and you move mailboxes to server2. Did you move all the users? What happened after this point? At what point did the DB go to 0 and when\why did server2 go offline? The DB went from 80 to 0 on which server 1 or 2? A DB does not shrink unless an offline defrag has been performed so either someone dismounted the store and deleted the DB and a new one got created, but than again a new blank DB mounted is not 0 bytes.James Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

Dear James, thank you for sharing me my nightmare. First, no one has access to exchange server. Second, this is the scenario: I had Exchange server 2010 sp1 "ServerA" with 3 roles (Mailbox, client and Transport). I deployed "ServerB" with the 3 roles too. I moved all the user mailboxes to "ServerB". Then I removed mailbox role and client access role from "ServerA". Everything is went smoothly and all users sent and received emails as always. All this happens a couple of weeks. Yesterday, I have been notified that exchange was restarted and users cannot access their mailboxes. I checked the exchange, I found the database unmounted. Tried to mount it with no hope. I checked the .edb file and I found it 0 Bytes. Please, I need a solution. I have the backup of "ServerA" and the logfiles for "ServerB". I cannot move users from ServerB because database is not accessible. What is the best solution to restore the user connection? I created another database but how I remove users to there? Can i get emails from logsfiles??? What can I do in this case? shall I contact Microsoft? Could someone please provide me a contact of an expert in Microsoft? Thank you,

Start here: http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx?RDPATH=dm;en-us;selectassist&target=assistance[string](0..33|%{[char][int](46+("686552495351636652556262185355647068516270555358646562655775 0645570").substring(($_*2),2))})-replace " "

I have seen this happen when there is a hardware (usually disk based error) so first thing would be to ensure that all your hardware is healthy, no issues etc. This would include checking and correcting any errors you find in the event logs, checking to ensure cards are seated, cables tight etc. You may also want to look at firmware on disk controllers to ensure they are up to date.Unfortunately that EDB file is already gone. You might try to see if it can be recovered using a 3rd party utility like WinUndelete etc or a 3rd party forensic recovery firm that might be able to rescue the data from disk, however I really doubt that this is possible.Do you by chance have ANY backups of the original database? Even if its very small you could then replay the logs into the copy of that database.The other option would be to obtain a copy of the database from the original server pre-migration and use a 3rd party utility like Lucid8's DigiScope http://www.lucid8.com/product/digiscope.asp to open the old offline database so that you can Browse, Search and Export Mailboxes, Folders and Items to PST & MSG or in your case you could migrate/import the data direct from the offline database into the Production Exchange server. The bad part is that this will not recover the delta information created post migration, however you will have all the historical information from pre-migration. before you continue on though, how many users are we talking about and are the users running in CACHE mode for Outlook? if so you can also rescue data from the users OST files as long as they have not been reconnected to a new dial toned database Troy Werelius www.Lucid8.com Search, Recover, & Extract Mailboxes, Folders, & Email Items from Offline EDB's and Live Exchange Servers with Lucid8's DigiScope

Please go through Troy's suggestions. Since you only have a backup of server1 you may have to resort to restoring the flat DB file and mounting it on server2 but you will have some data loss since your backups will be old. You will not be replay the logs because the logs on the new server were created with the DB on the new server so has different signature. Also can you check if you were AV scanning the Exchange directories? James Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

James, Troy, Jolinor, Thank you for your replies. 2 questions: 1- I have all Users connected to "Server2" database. I create a new database on "Server2", How can I move these users to this new database (even without their emails)? When I try to move them the server reply with an error that database is not mounted. I want users to login and send and receive emails. (Priority 1) 2- If I restore the the database on "Server1" the users still are not connected to server1 database. So, after applying question 1, can we extract users emails from .edb file?? Thanks,

You can dial tone the DB but I would HIGHLY recommend you ensure that the machine is stable before you do so.if your people are running Outlook in Cached mode I would again HIGHLY recommend that you have them do the following BEFORE you try to re-establish service. A: Open Outlook and it will tell the server that the Exchange server is not available but will provide you the choice to open the offline file. Do that and once opened the end user will have access to all the cached data. Then Export everything to PST via Outlook. If you wait and connect to the server once a new DB is available then the OST will be inaccessible.Once you have the data from the OST files protected you can do the following A: rename the existing DATABASE and LOG file path, i.e. if Exchange sees the database path as C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\MDBDATA rename MDBDATA to OLD_MDBDATA and do the same for the log path. B: Then recreate the expected path i.e. create a NEW MDBDATA folder. C: From Exchange management console mount the database and Exchange will tell you that it cannot find the required Exchange Database files and if you continue you will create new databases. Tell it to continue and new databases will be created and the DB will mount. Once mounted email will begin to flow to all users, i.e. they can now send and recieve without issue but historical messages will not be available. For those you will need to import from the PST exports referenced in step 2 OR use a product like http://www.lucid8.com/product/digiscope.asp to open an older offline copy of the pre-migration DB to push into the production server. 4. Get that database backed up right away 5. To extract the information from the old offline EDB use http://www.lucid8.com/product/digiscope.asp to export to PST or to recover directly into the new production server Troy Werelius www.Lucid8.com Search, Recover, & Extract Mailboxes, Folders, & Email Items from Offline EDB's and Live Exchange Servers with Lucid8's DigiScope

Dear Troy, this is great. Just a final question. After importing the user's mailboxes using Lucid8 into the new db, If I copy and paste the log files into the new location, it could update the new database (since they will have same database name)?? if not, is there is a way to benefit from the log files? Thanks a lot for your help and for the others too. Appreciated

Happy to assist and regarding the logs no you cannot play logs into a database they do not belong to. Only way to get the data out of the logs is IF you have a copy of the database from backup of some sort and even then you need all the logs in order to play them into the database. :-(Troy Werelius www.Lucid8.com Search, Recover, & Extract Mailboxes, Folders, & Email Items from Offline EDB's and Live Exchange Servers with Lucid8's DigiScope

how you tried repair mailbox option check with antivirus quarantine folder. are you tried deleted file recovery tool, it may help if someone deleted the file. for immediate action, you can create new database and create new mailbox with existing AD account. i think you can't use existing smtp address since same have in problematic database. kesav