Hello all. I'm upgrading my environment from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007. After I THOUGHT I moved everyone to the new server, I started the decomissioning process on the 2003 server. Then I found out there were a few mailboxes people could no longer access. I have the .EDB and .STM files still on the hard drive, but in ESM, I deleted the store. Now I need to reattach it. Of course, if I create a new database and try to use the same name and point it to the existing files, it won't work. Can anyone talk me through a way to reattach my database files so I can scrape out these last couple of mailboxes to the new server? Thanks for the help.

Whats the errors when you try to mount the store? (In the gui and event logs) Did you check the Allow this database to be overwritten by a restore checkbox? You shouldnt have been able to delete the store via ESM if there were still mailboxes in it. Sure thats the issue?

If you are interested in using a 3rd party product to resolve your issue check out Lucid8's DigiScope http://www.lucid8.com/product/digiscope.asp since it can do what you want and more i.e. DigiScope can open offline copies of any exchange database so that you can Browse, Search, Export Mailboxes, Folders and Individual Items to PST, MSG & XML or Recover the desired/required data direct from an offline database into a Production Exchange Server (Even cross versions, i.e. 2003 -> 2007 -> 2010 etc) DigiScope can be used to delete and purge items from production Exchange Servers.Troy Werelius www.Lucid8.com Search, Recover, & Extract Mailboxes, Folders, & Email Items from Offline EDB's and Live Exchange Servers with Lucid8's DigiScope

I am unable to mount the database. Since this was a server in the process of retirement, I deleted the public and private stores in ESM. The .EDB, .STM and log files are still on the hard drive. Good point about deleting the store with mailboxes still set as the home MTA on the server. That jogs my memory because I did this a while back. The bad news is, I may have deleted the store via ADSI.

Hi JCGarrard, Please confirm whether all the mailbox are moved to the new server, if so, it means the issue that some users could not access their mailbox may not caused by removing the database from the exhange 2003 server. So, please confirm whether the users could access the mailbox through OWA, and other version of outlook. As normal, it is better to keep the exchange 2003 and exchange 2010 coexistence for a period of time after you finished the migration, especially some clients are outlook 2003. If there are some mailboxes which are not moved to the new server in fact, you will need recover the database from backup, or do the disaster recovery. Due to you just delete the mailbox through ESM and ADSI, you could follow below to recover the database using edb and stm file. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313184 Regards! Gavin TechNet Community Support