Outlook/Exchange 500 MB of emails disappeared.

[Sunny Chakraborty]

Hi

Here's what happened.
The user has outlook configured as cached mode on his Vista Desktop.
He wanted to get his Outlook mails on his laptop so that he can work from
home.
I created a new profile on his outlook. Configured outlook to download mails
from the LAN. Also, I created a VPN link, so that he can remotely connect to
the office network and download emails.

He went home fired-up the VPN and tried downloading emails. He says outlook
send/receive didnt work. So he closed the notebook.
Next day he comes to office and he cant find mails from his outlook mailbox.

**Timeline**
8/3 - Mailbox size 733MB. OST file size about 700MB-1GB
8/4 - Mailbox size 150MB. OST file size 150MB

We tried to find out root-cause of this, but no clue till now.

**Pertinent Info:**
Emails disappeared selectively from some Folders in Mailbox - not all of
them. There are emails in sent-items / inbox. Nothing like all emails before
60 days / or all messages greater than X size. I think this rules out any
outlook archiving related cause.
Exchange mailbox retention policy set to 7 days
iPhone configured to receive emails from Ms Exchange.
Tried configuring Outlook MobileMe - but that didnt work because of Apple's
restrictions
This affected only 1 user - no other users lost mails.

**Already tried-steps:**
Checked HDD/Notebook/Jump Drives for OST / PST copies. Nothing there.
Checked Archive Settings in desktop/laptop. No archive operation was run.
No delegates on mailbox
No mailbox management process running on Exchange Server
ExMerge Dumpster Recovery didnt yield the results (500 MB of lost mails)
No entries in eventviewer application / system / security logs related to
outlook / exchange.
(Checked Event Viewer on desktop as well as exchange server)

Tried recovering using OnTrack Easy Recovery Pro,
Email recovery using old .OST file didnt yield anything. It just replicated
the existing mailbox structure.
Tried file-recovery (if the old .OST was over-written with new .OST file?) -
Ontrack couldnt detect Vista HDD for some reason.

There was hardware issue with tape-backups, so we're missing some log-files.
Already restored from last-good full-backup. That recovers mail items till
3/31 but not after that.

I'd really appreciate if anyone can advise possible troubleshooting options
for this.

What caused 500MB of email deletion ?
How do we recover these emails.


Thanks
-Sunny

 

[Toothsome Papa]

If you are saying the mailbox on the exchange server is now 150 mb, then the
email is probably either deleted or in a pst file somewhere. When you
checked the laptop, did you search AND include hidden/system folders and the
recycle bin? I've never used exmerge dumpster recovery, is that the same as
outlook's Tools > Recover deleted items?

 

[AllenM]

Did you delete the old profile when you created the new one? If not then the
profile still exists and you can reconnect to the exchange server using that
old profile. Do you see more than one profile in Control Panel\Mail\Show
Profiles? Did you search his local disk for *.pst?

 

[Mango]

Sunny Chakraborty wrote on Tue, 11 August 2009 12:2

Hi

Here's what happened.
The user has outlook configured as cached mode on his Vista Desktop.
He wanted to get his Outlook mails on his laptop so that he can work from
home.
I created a new profile on his outlook. Configured outlook to download mails
from the LAN. Also, I created a VPN link, so that he can remotely connect to
the office network and download emails.

He went home fired-up the VPN and tried downloading emails. He says outlook
send/receive didnt work. So he closed the notebook.
Next day he comes to office and he cant find mails from his outlook mailbox.

**Timeline**
8/3 - Mailbox size 733MB. OST file size about 700MB-1GB
8/4 - Mailbox size 150MB. OST file size 150MB

We tried to find out root-cause of this, but no clue till now.

**Pertinent Info:**
Emails disappeared selectively from some Folders in Mailbox - not all of
them. There are emails in sent-items / inbox. Nothing like all emails before
60 days / or all messages greater than X size. I think this rules out any
outlook archiving related cause.
Exchange mailbox retention policy set to 7 days
iPhone configured to receive emails from Ms Exchange.
Tried configuring Outlook MobileMe - but that didnt work because of Apple's
restrictions
This affected only 1 user - no other users lost mails.

**Already tried-steps:**
Checked HDD/Notebook/Jump Drives for OST / PST copies. Nothing there.
Checked Archive Settings in desktop/laptop. No archive operation was run.
No delegates on mailbox
No mailbox management process running on Exchange Server
ExMerge Dumpster Recovery didnt yield the results (500 MB of lost mails)
No entries in eventviewer application / system / security logs related to
outlook / exchange.
(Checked Event Viewer on desktop as well as exchange server)

Tried recovering using OnTrack Easy Recovery Pro,
Email recovery using old .OST file didnt yield anything. It just replicated
the existing mailbox structure.
Tried file-recovery (if the old .OST was over-written with new .OST file?) -
Ontrack couldnt detect Vista HDD for some reason.

There was hardware issue with tape-backups, so we're missing some log-files.
Already restored from last-good full-backup. That recovers mail items till
3/31 but not after that.

I'd really appreciate if anyone can advise possible troubleshooting options
for this.

What caused 500MB of email deletion ?
How do we recover these emails.


Thanks
-Sunn

Hi,

Try demo of Kernel for Outlook recovery software, its worth trying as it aims for results: http://www.nucleustechnologies.com/Microsoft-Outlook-Mail-Recovery.html.
Submitted using http://www.outlookforums.com

 

[wangdong]

Advanced Outlook Repair can help to undelete the emails you delete by
mistake. Refer to http://www.datanumen.com/aor/problems/outlook-deleted.htm
for more detailed information.

And visiting http://www.datanumen.com/aor/ can get detailed
information about Advanced Outlook Repair.

And you can also download a free demo version at http://www.datanumen.com/aor/aor.exe
Good luck!
Wangdong