>Seth,

>Thanks for the help.

>I deleted the edb and stm file. Then tried to mount the Mailbox Store. Like
>you said it reported the missing files, and created new ones. I never new it
>would be this easy.

>Erik

>"seth" <m...@myhouse.com> wrote in message
>news:%23Ru2vZ$8EHA.2552@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
>> well, i'd say you got nothing to lose since you say the store hasn't been
>> used and has no mail in it
>> the first thing i'd do is remove the mail properties from each user; that
>> way AD won't have any info about mailboxes for any user
>> not sure if you will have any problems with the store dismounted.
>> theoretically you wouldn't since if the store would to come back up, it
>> would just report in esm that the mailbox just isn't associated with a
>> user account.
>> if you get past that, then just go in esm and delete the store and create
>> a new one. it will automatically create the edb and stm files for you,
>> then you can go in to ad for each user and recreate the mailboxes and
>> aliases

>> "Erik Rossou" <e...@xxxrossou.nl> wrote in message
>> news:OY%23Ie038EHA.2788@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>>>A cry for help from an Exchange novice.

>>> I admit, I made some terrible mistakes. But hopefuly with your help I
>>> will
>>> be able to recover. Here is my story

>>> I got single new hardware-platform to replace 2 aging servers (one for
>>> Exchange and one for IIS). I decided to use this new hardware platform
>>> for
>>> running both Microsoft Exchange 2003 and about 20 websites using IIS6. I
>>> made my life easy by deciding that we would not migrate anything from the
>>> old Exchange server to the new one (no data and no settings).

>>> I first installed Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Exchange 2003 + SP1.
>>> Then I manually re-created the 5 user accounts in Active Directory with
>>> in
>>> total about 50 e-mail aliases. I then moved on installing additional
>>> software tools without checking my Exchange installation. Big mistake as
>>> was
>>> proven afterwards, because now I don't know whether the Exchange
>>> installtion
>>> was fully functional at that time.

>>> I then installed about 20 websites of which 3 have a web-application that
>>> also uses the Jet-engine to access the application's repository.

>>> At that point I moved the Exchange databases to a new directory (again
>>> without checking if the move went well). Don't ask me why I didn't check
>>> that (I feel stupid enough as it is!). I guess I was over-confident all
>>> went
>>> well.

>>> On top of that I had a power failure on the Dell PowerEdge.

>>> Now my problem:

>>> 1. Exchange won't mount the Mailbox Stores suggesting that I restart the
>>> Exchange IS service which I did, but that did not solve the problem

>>> 2. The Microsoft Knowledge Base tells me to use Eseutil. Eseutil tells me
>>> that the database is in a 'Dirty Shutdown' mode. It suggests that I use
>>> Eseutil to repair the priv1.edb file. I tried but Eseutil then complains
>>> that it can't do the repair because 'the database was created using an
>>> incompatible (likely older) version of the Jet database engine'. I have
>>> got
>>> no clue how the Jet engine version got changed somewhere in between.

>>> 3. I then downloaded and ran SP8 for the Jet engine hoping to solve the
>>> problem, but no luck.

>>> 4. I then re-installed Exchange 2003 and also reinstalled SP1, no luck
>>> again

>>> Now my proposed solution:
>>> The Exchange database holds no e-mail, because it has never been used so
>>> far. I assume all account details (user accounts and e-mail aliases are
>>> stored in AD).

>>> Won't the easiest solution be to just discard the damaged Exchange
>>> edb-files
>>> and stm-files (both for the Mailbox Store and the Public Folder Store)
>>> and
>>> somehow re-create these from scratch?

>>> Any suggestions on my proposed solution? And ofcourse a suggestion on how
>>> to
>>> re-create the edb-files and stm-files?

>>> Thanks,

>>> Erik

>>> p.s. This has been a great learning experience