mailbox recovery in Exchange Server 2003

[Fraggable]

I manage a Exchange 2003 server and have this mailbox that used to belong to a user, but we had to remove the user's account and create a new one. Somehow in the process the Exchange mailbox for the user got corrupted I think and now I need to export mail from the account so I can import it back into a new Exchange mailbox.

Anyone know of a good tool to do this with? I have tried using the ExMerge program but it won't see the user's old mailbox, only the new (empty) one.

 

[JRock]

You don't do nightly backups of the IS and the mailboxes?

 

[Fraggable]

you know that's something that I should have thought of when it happened and I just didn't. We do backups, I guess I'll have to figure out how to get it out now.

Thanks for the advice. I might have thought of that normally but we just went from NT 4.0 to server 2003 and exchange 5.5 to 2003 with little to no training and i'm a little confused right now.

 

[azev]

depending on the kind of backup did you use, this can be a very easy process or very difficult. When used to manage exchange2k, veritas backup exec was very intuitive in helping me recover deleted mail or mailboxes.

 

[JRock]

Originally posted by: azev
depending on the kind of backup did you use, this can be a very easy process or very difficult. When used to manage exchange2k, veritas backup exec was very intuitive in helping me recover deleted mail or mailboxes.

Yes. Backup Exec restores mailboxes very easily and on the fly.

 

[Fraggable]

we use the built-in backup utility. My co-worker seems to have done it before and says it's really simple but it's going to have to wait till Monday now.

 

[azev]

The problem with using the built-in backup utility is that you cannot restore just an instance (such as mailbox or even a single messages). You have to restore the whole mailbox store. Unless you have the latest full backup and incrimental/differential backup tape, you cannot restore the whole mailbox store.