Question : Mounting Exchange Information Store Freezes Server

I have a fully patched SBS 2003 server that was working correctly until yesterday about 5pm.

The server was completely non-responsive and had to be hard rebooted.
When it came back up it got to the logon dialog box and again froze.

I was able to troubleshoot it down to the exchange database, NOT the Information Store service.
The current setup I have gotten it to is the server boots with Do Not Mount This Store at Start-up checked .

My research lead me to:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Server_Software/Email_Servers/Exchange/Q_23600014.html  then to
http://forums.msexchange.org/m_1800386848/printable.htm

I was reliving this issue error for error.  I followed the advice:

 1) Make sure the store is dismounted. It probably is already.
2) Perform an offline backup of the EDB, STM, and LOG files (first rule of data recovery is "Do No Further Harm".)
3) Run ESEUTIL /D against the database. That might actually fix it. Doubtful, but there is a small chance that the corruption is in the whitespace of the database that is discarded during the /D.
4) If that does not do it, run ESEUTIL /P against the database
5) Run ESEUTIL /K again to make sure the corruption is cleared up.

******************************
>Follow these Steps:
>-----------------------
>Start the Information Store service. Mount all the stores
in System Manager.
>After 5 seconds, dismount all the stores from System
Manager (but let the IS
>service be running).
>When you do this, the store status will be updated for the server
**********************************

6) Run isinteg  servername -fix -test alltests against that database. You may need to run it several times until it reports no errors.

7) Try and remount the database. Run a full online backup of the entire storage group since doing a /P or a /D  resets the log file signature, so you need new backups from this point foward.

I started having errors at the insert after Step 5 (becuase the server crashes as soon as the database is mounted)...  but I was able to get the Store Status updated then proceeded through the steps.

When I run isinteg I get 0 errors, 0 warnings on all 21 tests.  The database looks like it is in perfect condition according to the utilites.

However, when I mount the store through Exchange System Manager the server complete locks, it stops responding to pings, the console is frozen ... it becomes a giant brick until I hard reboot it.

As a test, I left the server sitting in the frozen state for about 90 minutes with no joy.  The RAID array flashes all of the drives about once every 6 seconds, but I think that may be some PERC controller function.

Oh one piece of information I skipped ... IIn order to reset the Store Status on the server, I renamed MDBDATA and created a new (empty) MDBDATA folder and mounted a empty store.  Exchange created a new database and it mounted fine and the server did NOT lock up.  I stopped the IS service and moved the original database back into place tried mounting it and "poof" I had an instant brick again.

I have gone through the :
eseutil /p
eseutil /d
isinteg -s servername -fix -test alltests
Mount the store.
3 times and still nothing.

As long as I don't mount the Store everything else seems to be running ok. I have a few entries in the event logs, but none of them seem to directly impact this issue.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.  I am facing about 50 angry employees who want to lynch me about right now!

Thanks in advance.

Rob

Answer : Mounting Exchange Information Store Freezes Server

I think aaver is correct. You simply want to continue to the break point, don't try and step through all the source.