Hi guys, I have a slight issue I could do with some guidance on. Three of my users mailboxes have stopped receiving emails which the Exchange server is returning as undeliverable. Server Info: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise SP2 MS Exchange Server 2007 I've got an issue with three mailboxes that have all unexpectedly disconnected at the same time. Two of the users are active users in ADUC, the other is a new user that has so far only accessed his email via OWA. When I try to reconnect the mailboxes to the user, they do not show on the Existing User list, the same result as if they had a connected mailbox. The users are also showing in the normal Mailbox list. Is there a way I can reconnect the mailbox so the users can get their emails back, without giving them a new user name?

If you can't find them in AD then they're gone. Check your security event logs from account management audits. You need to check the logs on all DCs and also account management auditing needs to have been enabled prior to the account being deleted. On Windows 2003, we should get Event ID: 630 On Windows 2008, we should get Event ID: 4726 If the account does not show up in AD, it's gone. Your options are to restore the individual AD accounts from backup or create a new account to connect it to. If you restore using native tools you won't get all the attributes back you essentially only get the SID. To get all the attributes back you need to do an authoratative restore or use a third party backup. Step 2: Restore a Deleted Active Directory Object http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd379509(WS.10).aspxJames Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

Hi James, thanks for the reply The users are still in the AD and it looks like they still have a mailbox attached in EMC. However, checking the mailbox status in EMS says the mailbox is disconnected.

What happens when you try to log into their owa, what's the error? Also post the ndr. What I would do to immediately get them running is to actually disconnect them now (disable-mailbox) then reconnect them, see if you have that option. Or see if you can run mailbox-enabled commands against it such as set-mailbox user1 -applymandatoryproperties. If you choose to disable their mailbox and reconnect it, this deletes all mailbox related attributes and settings so you may want to document that such as send restrictions, x500 email addresses etc. Also where are you seeing the disconnected state using the get-mailboxstatistics user1 James Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

When I try to login to OWA the error is "The user name or password that you entered is not valid. Try entering it again." The NDR I've got is “4.4.7 QUEUE.Expired; message expired in unreachable destination queue. Reason: The mailbox recipient does not have a mailbox database ##” I’ve tried to disable the mailbox already which works fine. No new mailbox appears in the disconnected mailbox list. However, when I try to connect the mailbox from the disconnected list I get the warning message “The operation completed successfully but the change will not be effective until Active Directory replication occurs.” Upon replication, the mailbox reappears in the disconnected mailboxes list. Using get-mailboxstatistics returns data as normal, which it also did before. I can’t remember the command I used which returned an error due to the mailbox being disconnected now, sorry.

What I'd try is , pick one user and disable the mailbox. After you have disabled the mailbox run clean-mailboxdatabase - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124076(EXCHG.80).aspx See if this mailbox now shows up in the disconnect mailboxes, if it does then reconnect that mailbox to the user. Not sure what state your 3 users are? Have they or havent they got mailboxes attached to them? If they haven't, then run clean-mailboxdatabase and see if you can see the disconnected mailboxes an dconnect them. Sukh

Thanks. I've tried running through this to see if the clean-mailboxdatabase cmdlet will solve the problem, however on trying to reconnect the mailbox to the user i still get the same replication issue. However the issue isn't with the mailbox not showing in the disconnected mailbox list, it's that it seems to be falseley shwoing in the normal mailbox list.

The information might not update or reflesh. Reboot all your GC servers first, and then check to see if it is shown in the disconnected mailboxes panel. If so, reconnect it. For details steps, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201701(EXCHG.80).aspx. You may also recover the mailbox from dumpster (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124357(EXCHG.80).aspx?ppud=4), or create a new mailbox for the problematic user account. -Fiona