One of our customers appears to have deleted nearly the entire contents of her Outlook Inbox. I expected to be able to go to her Deleted Items folder and "recover deleted items" but the client shows there are none. The information store suggests that there are several Mb of deleted items in her mailbox. Does this behaviour just suggest that the items were hard-deleted (in which case, I can go to the tape backup) or is it indicative of database problems? Any thoughts much appreciated.Exchange 5.5 (sp4) running on NT4 (yes, I know, we're just starting a migration project!). Configured my Outlook 2003 client with a new profile to access the customer's mailbox (after another colleague had checked it out on her own machine) so her own client not involved. Client is running XP.

Try http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886205That may help you see items that were not moved to deleted items folder but were hard deleted (shift + delete). With dumpsteralwayson configured on client, you should be able to see each folder's deleted items. I said should because the article above applies to Exchange 2003 and it's not the case here so take a chance, it may work.Bhargav Shukla - MSFT - Exchange Reference: Exchange Server 2007 TechCenter - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124558.aspx; Exchange Server 2003 TechCenter - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123872(EXCHG.65).aspx; Microsoft Exchange Team Blog - http://msexchangeteam.com/default.aspx

Hi, I think you may need to use the backup of database to recover these mails. At the same time, I would like to explain Exchange 5.5 is retiring support, as it's outdated and may expose customers to security risks. Regards, Elvis