Ex Employee Deleted Everything in their Email Box

[skimmilk]

Hi Folks,
We have an employee (very high up I might add) that completely deleted everything from their email. Calendar, Journal, Sent Items, Deleted items you name it. My question is.....
In Exchange 5.5 Deleted Item retention is NOT turned on by default so thats NOT an option. The backup system I am currently using (ArcserveIT) only does an entire PRIV INFO Store Restore from what I can tell.
I go into Exchange Admin and look at mailbox resources and it shows that there are lots of "Stuff" in her mailbox. Does this mean it's not "gone"? Is there a way to retrieve this lost but "very important" email?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
A

 

[jpaf]

Try this reg hack from any pc and open the mailbox -

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q246153

Other than that you will need to do a restore of the IS

regards
jpaf

 

[skimmilk]

Thanks for the reply....
This Reg Hack still only works if Deleted Item Retention is enabled on the Server which it was not at the time. It is now...
Thanks though. I pretty much am out of luck.

 

[TDun]

If you set up another server as your exchange server (build it off the lan, give it the same name/IP,build of O/S and Exchange), then shut down your exchange server, put this box on the lan and recover your entire IS and DS.
Then , take this off the lan, put the real box back on and then locally, on the recovery box, you can go into the mailbox account (change the password to allow you in), save the items by exporting or by moving to a .pst file.
Copy this file off (via floppy or tape), then load it onto the person's PC, setting up a link in their outlook to the place you put the .pst on their hard disk.

 

[dogmata]

Milkey:

Bit late but perhaps some advise for the future: use Backup exec, you will be able to restore indiv. mailboxes (8.x versions), with 9.0 you can now restore indiv. public folders

may save you a headache in the future

Cheers
Dog

 

[jonarden]

Another FYI for the future: If the cost of change over to Backup Exec is an issue, ARCserve 2000 also has a backup agent for Exchange 5.5 for backup & restore of individual email boxes & folders (but not individual messages within folders). But for the least expensive alternative, see

http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq_appxb.htm

 

[skimmilk]

Thanks Again for all the replies.
It looks as though we are just going to forget it. To build another Server is just not worth the effort. Funds to purchase a new Backup Server and upgrade are existing software is in the works. This helped put the priority level up a notch if nothing else. The thing that is most upsetting is that Deleted Item Recovery was NOT enabled. I just came on board a month or so ago and still am learning all the systems and what they settings really are. I was hoping for some magical fix but unfortunately I wasn't that lucky this time.
Thanks Again!
Hopefully I'll be back asking questions about setting up a NEW Backup system.
A

 

[Candidog]

You build you backup server on any workstation that has the performance to handle your current Exchange Server load. You should be able to do all of this in a days time.

Greg

 

[archeron]

yes, i did this to restore some info, it took a day tops to install NT4 server and exchange 5.5 on an offline PC and I left it to restore overnight.

it's good disaster recovery practice too - what would you do if your exchange server blew up tomorrow?

At least this way you would have a hot spare ready in the future too.