() Database recovery failed with error because it encountered references to a database, ”, which is no longer present. The database was not brought to a consistent state before it was removed (or possibly moved or renamed). The database engine will not permit recovery to complete for this instance until the missing database is re-instated. If the database is truly no longer available and no longer required, please contact PSS for further instructions regarding the steps required in order to allow recovery to proceed without this database.

You may not be able to mount an Exchange database. You receive an ESE Event ID 494.

There is an Error -1216 in the Description section of the event which states Database recovery failed with error -1216 because it encountered references to a database [path\database name] which is no longer present. The database was not brought to a consistent state before it was removed (or possibly moved or renamed). The database engine will not permit recovery to complete for this instance until the missing database is re-instated.

If the database is truly no longer available and no longer required, contact Microsoft Product Support Services for further instructions about what needs to be done in order to allow recovery to proceed without this database.

• This behavior occurs because the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) tries to bring all databases in a storage group to a consistent state during recovery. To accomplish this, ESE keeps track of all databases in the log files for the storage group. If a database is missing, ESE returns the error -1216, and does not start the storage group. Error -1216 is equivalent to JET_errAttachedDatabaseMismatch. Error -1216 indicates that Exchange has determined that files in the running set of the database are missing or have been replaced with different versions. This error can also be represented hexadecimally as error 0xfffffb40. When this error occurs, Exchange quits the soft recovery of the database before making any changes to the database that might prevent the re-integration of the missing files with the data set.
• The location of the database(s) has been changed by using ESM or ADSIEdit, or manually, and ESE thinks the database(s) are on one drive but they are actually on another drive.
• Only the .stm database file is missing or has been deleted.

• Find the missing database files and place them in the proper locations. If this is not possible because the missing database was deleted or lost, restore the missing database from a backup.
• Correct the location of the database files in ESM or ADSIEdit.
• Use Eseutil /P createstm if the .stm file is missing and there is no backup available.
• A -1216 error can also indicate missing transaction logs. It is possible to force recovery to ignore the missing files by running ESEUTIL /R /I.
• There is a second error, Error -1222 message, which may occur in the Description section of Event ID 494 which translates to a 0xfffffb3a error code which means “JET_errDatabaseSignInUse” (a database with the same signature is in use). This can mean another copy of the same database is already running, or it can mean that the log files think that the database is one drive, while it is in fact on another drive, or that an attempt was made in ESM to move the database to another drive, but the move did not complete. If Error -1222 is received, you may be able to run Eseutil /R /I or you may need to restore from an online backup.