How to Recover One or More Mailboxes on One or More Mailbox Stores

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There are two methods for recovering mailboxes:

  • Recover a single mailbox on a single mailbox store. Use the Reconnect command, which is available when you select the mailbox in Exchange System Manager. During the reconnect process, select the user who you want to associate with the mailbox.

  • Use Mailbox Recovery Center to recover one or more mailboxes on one or more mailbox stores. You can export the mailbox properties to a file, and you can associate the mailboxes with users in Active Directory and reconnect the mailboxes.

To recover a mailbox by reconnecting it to an Active Directory account, perform the following procedure.

Before You Begin

A re-created Active Directory account has a different security ID (SID) and will not be recognized as the original account. Also, in specific disaster recovery circumstances, you may have to remove Exchange attributes from a user object before reconnecting the Exchange mailbox. If Exchange-related attributes are present, Exchange may assume that the user already has a mailbox, and leave the user off of the list of possible users who you can associate with the mailbox.

Procedure

To recover one or more mailboxes on one or more mailbox stores

  1. In Exchange System Manager, expands Tools.

  2. To choose a mailbox store to work with, right-click Mailbox Recovery Center and then click Add Mailbox Store.

  3. If you want to export the mailbox properties, right-click the mailbox that you want to export, and then click Export.

    This is a useful way to store the mailbox properties if you do not intend to associate the mailbox with a user.

  4. If you want a user to be able to access the mailbox, do the following to reconnect the mailbox:

    1. To associate a user with a mailbox, right-click the mailbox that you want to match to a user (or group), and then click Find Match.

      If a mailbox matches more than one user (or if no match exists), right-click the mailbox, and then click Resolve Conflicts. Follow the instructions in the Mailbox Conflict Resolution Wizard to identify a single matching user.

    2. To reconnect the mailbox, select the mailbox, right-click the selected mailbox, and then click Reconnect.

  5. When you have finished reconnecting mailboxes, remove the mailbox stores from the Mailbox Recovery Center.

For More Information

For more detailed information about recovering mailboxes, including how to remove the mailbox stores from the Mailbox Recovery Center, see the Exchange Server 2003 Help.