Repair Exchange 2010 Database Dirty Shutdown State

There are various major changes brought in Exchange 2010 over its predecessor. One of them is ESEUTIL tool which is a so powerful tool that allows the users to overcome various errors & fix Exchange server 2010 database from dirty shutdown.


In this segment we’ll be discussing how to recover from dirty shutdown issues of Exchange server 2010 & the process to fix it.

Dirty Shutdown (What it is?)

This is a common problem that exists in Exchange server. This happened when “Information Store” might not been closed properly. This can be happened either due to power surges or due to improper shutdown of the server.

‘Dirty Shutdown’ doesn’t mean that your database is corrupted, it points that your database files were not detached properly from the transaction log file. Hence, before opening the database file again, you need to replay the log files properly or repair the database.

Checking Dirty Shutdown State (using Eseutil)

Eseutil and Isinteg are the two command line introduced by the Microsoft in Exchange for resolving “Dirty Shutdown”. These commands effectively work on Dirty shutdown condition & efficiently fix it. 

So, in this very section we will discuss about ESEUTIL & it’s working. 

Measures to be taken before using inbuilt utility:

• Login as Exchange Administrator 

• Take a backup of Exchange database before stating  Eseutil/ Isinteg

• Need high storage for backup 

• Dismount Entire Database

Steps to check Dirty Shutdown conditions:

Below mention are the steps for checking the dirty shutdown state:

• Click on “Start” >> Go to “Run” >> Type “CMD” then click “OK” 

• Then a command window will open, then type “Eseutil help” command which shows complete details of Eseutil switch.

• Run Eseutil/mh command in order to check state of database.

•   If this Eseutil/mh command shows the “Dirty Shutdown” state then you have to check clean state of checkpoint file and transaction log file. This can be done using Eseutil/mk & ml command.

     Run Eseutil/mk for checking checkpoint file clean statement.

Run Eseutil/ml for checking log file clean statement .

All the above commands will show the clean state of log and checkpoint files. After that you have to apply the recovery process using Eseutil. 

Fixing Exchange Database after Dirty Shutdown with Eseutil

>Run Eseutil/r command for recovery process. 

Note: Eseutil/r command will work only when log file and database are in same drive & If both exist in different location then use Eseutil/l for “insert location” of log file and /d for “insert location” of database location.

After performing soft recovery process, again verify the clean state of the database with Eseutil/mh command.

Run Eseutil/mh command

If you are still finding dirty shutdown state then you need to apply repair process for making database in healthy state. 

Execute database repair process with Eseutil/p command.

Let’s have a look how exactly this Eseutil/p command works through an example. 

E.g.: This figure shows corrupt parts of the database 

After running Eseutil/p command line it’ll remove the corrupt part from the database and generate white space.

Then remove the free space of the database, by using the Eseutil/d command.

Eseutil/d command successfully removed the white space from the DB but it will show the mismatch numbers of EDB file.

In order to re-arrange it, you have to use Isinteg command.

• Run Isinteg command 

So, by following the above steps, you will easily repair the Exchange database from dirty shutdown. But if Exchange administer are still not getting the database in healthy format and facing several issues of database corruption then he/she should go for the third party Exchange Recovery tool. It is an advanced key which helps to extract emails from edb file to PST & also convert corrupt EDB files into PST as well. This tool has been designed with strong algorithm for recovery of Exchange server database and restores data from EDB file to Outlook PST file format.