How do I restore a single mailbox? 1

[danno74]

Alright alittle layout of what's going on...


Really need help with this one. One of the VPs Inbox for Outlook has something wrong with it. She is missing folders from her Outlook today mailbox file. There are whole folders that are missing, and some folders that had things in them that are in a folder tree under Deleted items. Only one out of 5 folders has a single file in them, which she states is definitely not how it was. Today is the first day she noticed the change.

The only thing that has happened lately is that I deleted her user profile on her PC because she was having problems with the computer about a week or two ago. But I have done that for many people, and all the folders and email stored in Outlook are out on the server, so this should have no affect on this and never has. Please tell me there was nothing I deleted that she needed... she has W2K, and I know there are archive files in the Application data folder under the Documents and Settings folder.

We do a full backup of our servers every Monday, and an incremental every weekday with ARCserve2000. What I want to do is find her Inbox file on the Exchange backup and see if I can import that file into her existing mailbox. Please, if you have any idea on how to locate this file, let me know. I am going to look around the exchange server and see if I can find anything.

HELP! Thank you!

 

[Zelandakh]

danno - does she use personal folders at all?

hope not.

On her box, add a personal folder. copy all emails, contacts etc to personal folder.

Bin her acc, recreate, replicate. put it on her box, copy stuff back.

 

[danno74]

She DID use them, but all that is left is her Inbox file. There were 5 folders in Deleted Items, with 2 msgs in those.

it's weird, I went onto the Exchange Sys Manager, and it shows her account in the Mailbox Store, and it states she has 3,700 items, but when I go and look at her Outlook, it only shows 2,500.. does that mean the missing emails are somehow still in her mailbox on the server?

Alright, if I was to copy all her stuff in Outlook to a personal folder (excuse the apparent newbieness) How do I bin the acct, recreate and replicate? I have next to no experience with Exchange until today....

thanks so much.

 

[lan123]

danno,

What is the her mail client configuration (Internet mail only or Corporate or Workgroup with Exchange sevice)? If she's using Internet only after you deleted her profile then her .pst file which was inside her profile was deleted. The .pst file the outlook is pointed to now will not have any old mail items except she saved her .pst file outside her profile. If she's using Exchange service and open her mailbox from exchange server derectly then everything should be still on the exchange server. (Open floder: M:\domain.COM\MBX\usid)

Lan

 

[danno74]

We use the workgroup exchange service. I did find the MBX user ID and tried to restore it to a different location so I could import the files into Outlook from her PC. It said it was successful, but stated it only moved 128k and when I went to check the location of where I sent it to, it was not there.

Maybe it's the backup program we use (ARCserve) or it's the nature of the file not to show up. When I go and try to look in the MBX folder, it won't allow me, even with Admin priviledges, because I wanted to see what the file size was.

So should I just save all her stuff out of outlook, delete the MBX file and restore it from ARCserve (or at least try)? Is my Admin account somehow no able to do this? If so, where do I go to fix that?

 

[lan123]

according to what you did should have nothing to do with her mailbox folder on the server so you do not need to restore it from the backup. To open her mailbox on the server do the following:

From -> Active Directory Users and Computers -> Right click on her name -> Properties -> Exchange Advanced (if you can't see this tag go to View -> check Advanced Features) -> Mailbox Right -> Add adminitrators group -> give full mailbox access permission -> log on to exchange as a member of the administrator group not administrator self. You will able to open her mailbox folder through windows explore then.