Checking Exchange 5.5 Databases

[HupAhh]

Hi,

I'm preparing to move over 200 exchange 5.5 mailboxes from an old server to a new server (running exchange 5.5) and I wanted to check all the mailboxes on my current server for corruption (I know there are several) and fix them before the migration.

Has anyone come across a tool that could do the trick?

Thanks,
P

 

[zbnet]

First, I have to ask, why are you migrating from 5.5 to 5.5? Surely you should be focusing on mirating away from 5.5, since it is no longer in support?

Are you running a nightly online (Exchange-aware) backup? If so, this is doing a nightly check for database corruption, it recalculates the checksum for every single 4KB db page, and fails if even a single one is wrong - thus allowing you to restore the previous backup, and recover from the error. That's why checking the backup every day is critical for an Exchange server. Offline backups are simply not a suitable alternative for backing up Exchange because of this (not to mention the downtime an offline needs).

Is your new server in the same Exchange site as the old? Then moving the mailboxes using the Admin program will itself flush out any maibox corruption you may have, simply because it attempts to access every single mail item in every single mailbox as it moves them.

 

[netometer]

Hi!
Probably you are asking about the ESEUTIL and ISINTEG tools.
Here is an article which you might find helpful:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272570/en-us

What kind of errors do you get in the application event log? Have you tried to ExMerge the problematic mailboxes?

Which way did you choose to move your Exchange 5.5 server? Probably adding the new server to the existing Exchange 5.5 org and moving the exchange resources will be the most suitable. Here you can find a demo for the different approaches to move Exchange 5.5 to new hardware:

http://www.netometer.net/video/

Zbnet is right about focusing on migrating away from Exchange 5.5.
You should be pressed by serious financial restrictions in order to choose to stay with Exchange 5.5.
Do you have Active Directory in place?
A very serious alternative is available for companies which are looking for a migration path for Exchange 5.5 – I am talking about called Scalix server.
You can take a look at Scalix installation and functionality here:

http://www.netometer.net/video/scalix.php

Dean

http://www.netometer.net

 

[HupAhh]

Thanks folks. Unfortunately I have to stick with Exchange 5.5 for now because Active Directory hasn't be implemented here yet and the current server is within a few days of running out of disk space.

I've done a lot of testing over the last few weeks and the move mailbox functionality is working really well. For mailboxes that give me trouble I've used exmerge and this also works well.

Thanks again for the tips, this weekend is the big one!

P