Exchange Server 2010 RC mailbox server role un-installation error
I tried uninstalling my Exchange 2010 server which was running all my server roles and I came across with the following error when it try to uninstall the mailbox server role.
"Uninstall cannot continue. Database 'Mailbox Database 2315386291': This mailbox database contains one or more mailboxes or arbitration mailboxes. To get a list of all mailboxes in this database, run the command Get-Mailbox -Database . To get a list of all arbitration mailboxes in this database, run the command Get-Mailbox -Database -Arbitration. Before you can remove this mailbox database, you must disable, move, or remove user mailboxes and move arbitration mailboxes. "
I tried removing all the mailboxes using the GUI, even after removing all the mailboxes i was getting the same error, then I tried removing the database itself, but no luck, even the database cannot be removed until you remove the arbitration mailboxes out of the database,
even though you remove all mailboxes using GUI there are arbitration mailboxes which is NOT visible in GUI are present in a mailbox server.
To remove the arbitration mailboxes you need to follow the below steps. (You need to use Exchange Management shell for this, no GUI)
1st you need to get arbitration mailbox IDs before you can remove them, for that go to Exchange Management Shell and run the following command.
Get-mailbox -arbitration | fl name, identity
I don’t have the screen shots put here because I already uninstalled my server.
After running above command you can get the list of arbitrations mailboxes and mailbox IDs associated with them.Then you run the following command with related mailbox ID to remove them one by one.
Remove-mailbox -identity "domain.com/Users/SystemMailbox{1f05a927-563f-4671-8a1b-487764400889}" -arbitration -RemoveLastArbitrationMailboxAllowed
Or you can run below command to remove all arbitration mailboxes out of the server
Get-Mailbox -Arbitration | Remove-Mailbox -Arbitration -RemoveLastArbitrationMailboxAllowed
Now you can proceed with your un-installation of your Exchange 2010 mailbox server.
Happy un-installation!!.