When does a Microsoft Exchange database dismount?
The Exchange database also known as EDB becomes unmountable when the server fails or when the database file becomes corrupted due to errors. Many organizations rely on the Exchange server for day-to-day communication, email exchange, and therefore its failure can have disastrous consequences. The EDB may also be dismounted for a variety of reasons, such as when it is locked for use by another application, missing transaction log files, failure to mount after an Exchange server reboot, and so on. In all of the preceding scenarios, the database becomes inaccessible, and Microsoft Exchange displays error messages such as 'Failed to mount database Mailbox Database’. You can mount the EDB to the Exchange server directly if it is in the Clean Shutdown state. However, if it fails to mount due to corruption, it is said to be in the Dirty Shutdown state, which necessitates both soft and hard database recovery. Let's take a look at how to recover your data from a dismounted .edb file in the following sections.
How to recover data from a dismounted Exchange database?
To recover data from a dismounted Exchange database, use Eseutil to perform soft and hard recovery. However, if the database fails to mount even after performing hard recovery, you must perform a dial tone recovery operation to temporarily restore email continuity and recover the database using a professional Exchange database recovery tool such as EdbMails.