JSI Tip 1780. Exchange information store may not start, or stops responding, with Event ID 145?

If your Exchange information store will not start, or stops responding, and you receive:

Event ID: 145
Source: ESE97
Category: General
Description: MSExchangeIS ((%pid%) ) The database engine could not access the file called %database path%\edb.log.

where the file listed may be any file in the database directory, then some program/process has the file locked.

To determine if it is really locked:

copy <database path>\edb.log %TEMP%

If you are greeted with:

The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

then the file is locked.

Common causes are ant-virus or backup software. Configure these to ignore the Exchsrvr\Mdbdata or Exchsrvr\Dsadata directories.