We were moving some of large mailboxes (all in excess of 1GB) to a newly created mailstore in the same storage group on Exchange 2003. The move process caused the transaction logs to fill up the partition that the logs are housed, shutting down the mailstore while in the middle of the move (I knowmy bad). After cleaning up the drive I was able to mount all the stores, and then run a full backup to clear the transaction logs. The after effects of this are that there are now two mailboxes for each of the users that were being moved when the process was interrupted. The users are connected to the mailboxes that were in the mailstore that was the original source and are able to send and receive mail. In the target mail store, the four mailboxes exist but show as disconnected. I do need to recover the mail that exists in the orphaned / disconnected mailboxes. I created a user without a mailbox and figured that I would connect these mailboxes to this user one by one, then extract all the mail in the mailbox to a pst file, and import that mail back into the mailboxes connected to the users. However, when I try to connect any of the orphaned mailboxes to the newly created user I receive the following error message: The operation can not be performed because this mailbox was already connected to an existing user ID no: c1034ad6 Exchange System Manager Any ideas on how I can get these orphaned mailboxes connected to the generic user I created to recover the mail, or another method of recovering the mail that is contained within would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Are you sure that data is missing in original mailbox? Because Exchange deletes the data after completion of full mailbox move and your moves wasinterruptedin betweenso I think original mailbox is at no loss... However you can not connect to the orphaned mailbox because guid of that mailbox will be same as original and while connecting itdefinitelygives this error that mailbox is already connected...Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

Thank you for your very prompt response. Upon closer examination of the mailboxes that are in the original source mailstore, you are correct in that the mailboxes contain all of the mail that they held previous to doing the move. This makes the issue much less complex. I do have one more concern. To remove these orphaned mailboxes, can I just purge them using Exchange Manager? My concern is that since these mailboxes seem to have the same guid as the original mailboxes, will purging the orphaned mailboxes have an effect on the existing mailboxes.Thank you again for your assistance.E_K

Yes, you can purge the mailbox, it shouldn't create any issue with original mailbox since it is attached with an AD account... However you may need to do it forcefully (manual purge method may not work and gives error, however try it first), set the Keep Deleted Mailbox for 0 days in Limits tab and wait for the onlinemaintenanceto run during midnight and let Exchange purge the orphaned mailbox...Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

I have made the change to 0 days for deleted mailboxes for the new mailstore, and will check tomorrow morning that the orphaned mailboxes have been removed. Thanks again.E_K

Here is an update. Changing the parameter for "Keep Deleted Mailbox for:" to 0m days was 75% succesful. THree of the orphaned mailboxes were deleted, but one remains. I checked the properties of this mailbox and it is no different form the oters that were deleted so far as I can tell. The online maintenance has run three times, and the orphaned mailbox remains. ANy suuggestions?Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.E_K

Please verify the health of information store with ISINTEG and ESEUTIL Please increase the diagnostics logging to service MSExchangeIS on the following categories, and check the application log after the next online maintenance, start with event 1208 "Starting the IS Maintenance tasks" General Background Cleanup IS/AS Synchronization How to Configure Diagnostics Logging

How's the issue currently? Any update?

I have tried to leave two replies on this form last week, and neither appeared here. Not sure what could be wrong.At anyrate the last mailbox still exists in the mailstore. I thought I found he reason why last week, but that turned out not to be correct. I did turn up the logging as per your request.

Pardon the seperation of the reply. I was testing to see that the previous post would show up.I have gone through the event logs and found the trail of event IDs that review the cleanup process for this mail store, which I will refer to as Mailbox Store 10. The First Event ID that mentions mail store 10 specifically is Event 1206. The description is Starting cleanup of items past retention date for Item Recovery on database "Third Storage Group\Mailbox Store 10". Next comes Event ID 1207: Cleanup of items past retention date for Item Recovery is complete for database "Third Storage Group\Mailbox Store 10". Start: 0 items; 0 Kbytes End: 0 items; 0 Kbytes I assume this is referring to any individual items in the mailboxes that have been in the deleted items retention bucket for longer than 30 days. There are no deleted items in any of these mailboxes. Next is Event ID 9531: Starting cleanup of deleted mailboxes that are past the retention date on database "Third Storage Group\Mailbox Store 10". Next is Event ID 9533. Here, Exchange finds and recognizes the mailbox that was orphaned: The user account for 'jdoe@acme.com' does not exist in the directory or is not enabled for Exchange mail. This mailbox will be removed from mailbox store 'Third Storage Group/Mailbox Store 10' in 0 days This last part of the statement appears to me that it is preparing to delete this mailbox as it is to be removed in 0 days. However, the next entry shows that this does not happen: Event ID 9535: Cleanup of deleted mailboxes that are past the retention date is finished on database "Third Storage Group\Mailbox Store 10". 0 deleted mailboxes (0 KB) have been removed. 1 deleted mailboxes (367718 KB) have been retained. So this is a bit of a mystery. I have gone back and checked the settings on the mailbox and the mail store and there is no setting in either place that would prevent this mailbox from being deleted. As mentioned above in this thread, three of the four mailboxes that were orphaned in this mail store where deleted. Its just this one that continues to be a problem. Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Could you help reconnecting this orphaned mailbox to a new user object, and move the orphaned mailbox to another store, and then try to purge again? If you cant, is it any further error event occurs? Please monitor the result

When I try to reconnect the orphaned mailbox to a user that does not have an Excahnge mailbox (I used my admin account which does not have a mailbox), I get the following error:The operation can not be performed because this mailbox was already reconnected to to an existing user.ID no: c1034ad6Excahnge System ManagerThere was no error in the Event Logs regarding this mailbox or mailstore.I am thinking the best way to resolve this is to move the good mailboxes that exist in this new store, there arent that many of them, to other Mail Stores and then delete this mailstore with the orphaned mail box.Does anyone see any potential danger in taking this path?Thank you in advance.E_K

Please see the method 2 in KB 930363

Method 2 of the KB 930363 Error message when you try to remove an orphaned mailbox after a failed move operation in Exchange 2003: "The Operation cannot be performed because this mailbox was already reconnected to an existing user" solved the issue. Thank you very much for your assisatance.