Hi Guys, I've had someone remove an old Exchange Administrative Group for a legacy 2003 Exchange environment. Exchange 2010 is now installed. This was noticed when Exchange started rejecting email for mail enabled public folders. It turns out the Public Folder database is not longer viable in the GUI. The domain level is 2008 R2. I believe he was trying to delete the Servers folder from this group but deleted the entire legacy admin group. I believe I have two options: * Restore from AD Backup * Recreate Public Folder Store Are there any other ways to fix this issue using the existing public folder store?

I would perform an authoritative restore of the Active Directory tree. After you accomplish that, move the public folder object to the Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF25SPDLT) administrative group. After that, do NOT delete the old administrative group unless you want to break free-busy function for all moved mailboxes.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

As it stands now, can I recreate a public folder database and fix the free-busy information? There was not a lot in them and we have a pst backup. It might be easier (and safer) just recreating the public folder. Additional Information: Process w3wp.exe () (PID=2116). Object CN=Public Folder Database 2017187684,CN=Databases,CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT),CN=Administrative Groups,CN=Mobile PC,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=domain,DC=local read from server.domain.local failed validation. Attribute: PublicFolderHierarchy. Error message: You must provide a value for this property.. Invalid data: . Now this exists. This has appeared after deleting First Administrative Group. Also, how do I restore on Windows 2008 R2 on just the subtree that has been deleted? I've only ever done full ad restores. The backups have been done using Windows Backup.

As it stands now, can I recreate a public folder database and fix the free-busy information? There was not a lot in them and we have a pst backup. It might be easier (and safer) just recreating the public folder. Additional Information: Process w3wp.exe () (PID=2116). Object CN=Public Folder Database 2017187684,CN=Databases,CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT),CN=Administrative Groups,CN=Mobile PC,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=domain,DC=local read from server.domain.local failed validation. Attribute: PublicFolderHierarchy. Error message: You must provide a value for this property.. Invalid data: . Now this exists. This has appeared after deleting First Administrative Group.

It's not Exchange you need to restore, it's AD. Read up on Authoritative Restore. It's not easy. You might want to open a support ticket with Microsoft Support if you need help with it.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

I've done AD restores before. Just wondering if it was possible to restore the tree that was deleted without restoring the whole of AD.

Done the AD Restore. Everything is working perfectly. What a pain. Thanks for your help.

Happy to have helped. To answer your earlier question for anyone else who might stumble upon this thread, you can just restore the subtree that was deleted, which in this case would be the Administrative Group object and its children from the Configuration naming context.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

Are there any instructions with examples on this? I didn't actually know you could restore subtrees. Thanks

I could Google it, but you can do that just as easily.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

I actually already had, otherwise I wouldn't have asked. The information is very vague.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=authoritative+restore+active+directory+subtree The first hit has the following two very non-vague links: Performing an Authoritative Restore of a Subtree or Leaf Object Procedures for Authoritative Restore of a Subtree or Leaf Object Happy reading!Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

Tongue in cheek. I'd actually read the first link, but not far down enough. Thanks mate :)