Using ISINTEG and ESEUTIL to ensure the health of your Information Store

by Michael W. Wass - November 3, 2009

original author Marc Grote

The following article provides basic steps of using both ISINTEG and ESEUTIL to maintain and repair Microsoft Exchange Server. ESEUTIL is used to defragment your Exchange Information Store offline, check the integrity of the Store and repair it in case of emergency. ISINTEG is used to perform tests on the Information Stores and to fix errors.

Before you begin:

• Make a backup or your Exchange databases even if you think the files are damaged

• Use ISINTEG and ESEUTIL with an understanding of what these tools really do

• Dismount the Information Store you are working with

Figure 1: Dismount Exchange information Store

ESEUTIL is used to defragment, check integrity & repair a damaged or lost Microsoft Exchange Database offline. It is located in the \EXCHSRVR\BIN which is not in the system path so must be used from the BIN directory or added to the system path.

ESEUTIL /D parameters

Microsoft Exchange 2003 performs a defrag on the databases every night but is only an online defrag. Online defrag does no reduce the size of the Information Store. To reduce the size of the databases an offline defrag must be used. In general however an offline defrag is not necessary unless you've added or removed quite a few users or objects from the Information Store.

Use ESEUTIL /MS to do a space dump.

ESEUTIL parameters for defragmentation

Depending on the size of your Information Store or the hardware its installed on, the defrag process can take quite a bit of time.

ESEUTIL can also be used to check the integrity of your database using the /G parameter

To start the integrity check for PRIV1.EDB database, type the following from a command prompt:

ESEUTIL /G „C:\Program files\exchsrvr\mdbdata\priv1.edb“

Disaster Recovery

Before you begin:

• Make sure the database is offline

• Check the Application log for events that might give you a better idea of the failure

• Make a backup of your databases

ESEUTIL /P parameters

ESEUTIL /p repairs a corrupted or damaged database

Example:

ESEUTIL /P „c:\program files\exchsrvr\mdbdata\priv1.edb“ /Se:\exchsrvr\mdbdata\priv1.stm /Te:\tempdb.edb

This command will repair the database PRIV1.EDB. If you have no .STM file, you can create one with ESEUTIL /CREATESTM