App. how long would a eseutil /g take on a message store of 10GB? Also, the help file doesn't say how to tell eseutil which store to run on. If my store (in Exchange System Manager) is named "Mailbox Store T-Z (Exchange)" what do I put in the command line to designate that store? TIA

Don, I would estimate about 2 hours. However, if the file has a lot of "white space" in it, then it would take less time. Remember that you must have about 10-11GB of free space on the disk with the database and that you must dismount the database first. I usually change directory in to the folder that holds the EDB file and run ESE. I'm assuming that your EDB file is name "Mailbox Store T-Z (Exchange).EDB", so here is the command that will probably work. c:\program files\exchsrvr\bin\ESEUTIL.exe /D "Mailbox Store T-Z (Exchange).EDB" HTH! Jim

Thanks for the help!

BTW, I'm running this utility due to a 467 Database Curruption message in the Event Log but due you recommend running it regularly?

Hi Don, In general, I never recommend running ESEUTIL unless you think you can significantly shrink the size of the database by more than about 25%. Exchange 2000/2003/2007 is pretty good at keeping itself clean. Can you post the "Description" of the event you are seeing? You can sanitize anything specific to your server name. Just copy and paste the text in to the posting. Database corruption is probably not going to be helped much by running ESEUTIL as ESEUTIL will stop if it find a corrupted page in the database (unless the page has no data, in which case ESEUTIL just tosses it out. The 467 error is probably NOT a good thing. Generally it also means that you have some type of problem such as a disk controller device driver, bad firmware on the disk controller, or a bad disk. Jim

Jim, once again you are correct. I ended up paying for a Microsoft support incident where they confirmed that ESEUTIL would not resolve my database corruption issues. I'm scheduled with them for tomorrow to perform the following: Setup Easy Assist session Move out the database with the problem and mount a blank database Create a Recovery Storage Group and add the mailbox store Copy, rename and mount the mailbox store in the Recovery Storage Group Exmerge the data back to the mailboxes in the production database. Thanks again for all of your help and cross your fingers for me :-)

I have seen this type of issue once or twice in the past. So I can relate. If I were you, I would make sure that your server is completely up-to-date with patches and firmware. check with the server manufacturer to see if they have a "Server Update" disk like Dell has their Server Update Utility or the PowerEdge Update Utility. It will update firmware, device drivers, etc... from the manufacturer. Of course, have a good backup before you do that. Usually when you call Microsoft and say "I have a corrupt database" they say "When was your last good backup?" Recovery of data can be "iffy". It sounds like they have a good plan to help you out, though.

10-4 on those points. I also replaced both hard drives today in case there was a problem there. Thanks again for your insights and assistance :-)