XADM: Isinteg Has Been Modified to Dump the Mailbox Table

In a disaster recovery situation, when the only backup available is a few days old, there is no mechanism for determining whether the best procedure is to restore the old backup, or to try running the utilities (Eseutil and Isinteg) to repair the database. The problem is that the utilities can end up removing information (pages) from the database, and there no way of telling which actual users (mailboxes) have been affected. Determining which users are affected by the repair may be useful in making the decision to try and repair the database, as opposed to restoring the old backup.

This modification is no substitute for a correctly implemented disaster recovery strategy. Restoring from a recent backup should always be the preferred method for coping with a disaster recovery scenario.

Isinteg has been modified to additionally dump the Mailbox table of the database. Previously the Isinteg -dump option would dump the Index Age and Folder tables, but now it also dumps the Mailbox table.

This additional information can be used in the following manner to manually determine which users have lost information from a database repair.

�	After running Eseutil to repair the database, that is, eseutil /p database name /v /x, check the display and Repair.txt file in the same directory. If you see lines in the file such as: Inserting page 62 into BadPages table Creating new FDP with 3 pages starting at 246 Table Msg (14). new pgnoFDP is 246 It indicates that bad pages have been found in the database and moved to a different table for deletion.
�	When running Isinteg to check the integrity of the database, that is isinteg -pri -fix -detailed -verbose -test alltests, check the Isinteg.pri file in the same directory. If you see lines such as: Fix: MsgFolder 1 (FID=0001-000000000144, MID=0001-000000000167, INID=0001-0000000010E9): Deleting this MsgFolder row It indicates from which folder (indicated by the FID) has been repaired.
�	Now run Isinteg in dump mode, that is, isinteg -pri -dump, and check the Isinteg.pri file in the same directory. Look up the FID in the dump of the Folder table and obtain the Root FID of the folder: [36] Folder FID=0001-000000000144 Parent FID=0001-000000000141 Root FID=0001-000000000140 ACL ID=0000-000000000000 Folder Type=1 Msg Count=0 Msgs Unread=0 Msgs Submitted=0 Rcv Count=4 Subfolders=0 Name=Inbox Comment= Restriction= Search FIDs=0001-000000000401 Recursive FIDs= Search Backlinks=0001-000000000401 Categ FIDs= Look up the Root FID in the dump of the Mailbox table and obtain the details of a user who has lost information as a result of the database repair, for example: [3] RootFID=0001-000000000140 Owner DN=??? GUID=5BC414D6 1BFED211 B9C20080 C7C0C499 Display Name=Mailbox - John Doe Comment= Sentmail FID=542D-6530362B5136 Subtree=0001-000000000141 Inbox=0001-000000000142 Outbox=0001-000000000143 Sentmail=0001-000000000144 Finder=0001-000000000146 DAF=0001-000000000147 Spooler Q=0001-000000000148 Size=(ec:ecNotFound-MAPI_E_NOT_FOUND) Localized=TRUE Locale=0x409

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Exchange Server version 5.5. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

Component: Information Store

File name	Version
Isinteg.exe	5.5.2608.0

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5. This problem was first corrected in Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 3.