Restore Disconnected Mailbox in Exchange 2016, 2013, 2010 With Ease

How to Restore Disconnected Mailbox in Exchange 2016/2013/2010 Server In Simple Steps?

There might be scenarios where a user may want to restore disconnected mailbox in Exchange 2016, 2013, 2010. First, a user may want to reconnect it to the same AD (Active Directory) user account or to some other AD user account. Moreover, a user may wish to recover it to the newly created mailbox or to migrate it to the linked mailbox corresponding to the account which is outside the forest where the Exchange Server resides.

Rapid Solution: The best approach to restore the Exchange disconnected mailbox in Exchang 2016, is to use the professional software i.e. Exchange Recovery tool provided by SysTools. It directly export the disconnected Exchange mailboxes to the Live Exchange Server 2016/2013/2010/2007/2003 in a hassle freeway.

Methods to Restore Disconnected Mailbox in Exchange 2016, 2013, 2010

When it comes to enabling and disabled mailbox in Exchange Server 2016 which is either disabled or deleted, users can do that in two ways. They are as follows:

Using the Connect-mailbox Command or EAC

This procedure works by connecting the disconnected or disabled mailbox with the user account.

With the Help of Exchange Administrative Center – Users can implement the following steps to connect the disconnected mailbox. You can also reconnect disabled “shared mailboxes” or disabled “linked mailboxes” with the account of the user.

• Open the EAC of Exchange Server and navigate to Recipients and then go to Mailboxes option.
• Now, click on the More option and then hit Connect a Mailbox option.
• This will list all the disconnected mailboxes in the Exchange Server.

Note: The disconnected mailboxes consists of deleted mailboxes, disabled mailboxes, and soft-deleted mailboxes.

• Click on the disconnected mailbox and hit the Connect tab to reconnect the mailbox.
• A prompt appears which assures that whether you want to connect the mailbox or not.
• Select Yes option in the prompt.

Using the PowerShell Command to Restore Disconnected Mailbox in Exchange 2016, 2013, 2010

Second option is by using the Connect-Mailbox command in the shell. Moreover, you have to specify the type of the mailbox with which you are reconnecting. The syntax for executing the entire task is explained in the following segment:

Connect-Mailbox -Identity "XYZ" -Database MBXDB1 -User "XYZ"

This is the syntax for connecting a user mailbox. Here, the “Identity” and “User” parameters define the disconnected mailbox in the Exchange Server and Active Directory account respectively to restore disconnected mailbox in Exchange.

Connect-Mailbox -Identity "Robin Dexter" -Database MBXDB1 -LinkedDomainController KimFabriDC02 -LinkedMasterAccount Robin.Dexter@KimFabri.com -Alias Robin

The above command connects the “linked mailbox”. The “Identity”, “LinkedMasterAccount”, and “Alias” describes the disconnected mailbox if Exchange DB, the user account of Active Directory in the account forest which you wish to connect to the mailbox and the alias. Here, the alias is the part of email address on the left of the @ symbol of the email address.

Connect-Mailbox -Identity "Enterprise Shared Mailbox" -Database "Mailbox Database 02" -User "Enterprise Shared Mailbox" -Alias Enteshared -Shared

The above command displays an example to connect the shared mailbox.

Important Note: If a user does not specify the Alias parameter when the Connect-Mailbox command is implemented, the value mentioned in the “User” or “LinkedMasterAccount” will be used to create the email address alias for the reconnected mailbox.

Using the New-MailboxRestoreRequest cmdlet to Restore Disconnected Mailbox in Exchange 2016, 2013, 2010

This procedure works by combining the disables mailbox data with the existing mailbox data. This command uses the Mailbox Replication Service (MRS) to restore the Exchange Server mailbox data.

To create the request to restore Mailbox, a user has to use the display name, DN i.e. legacy distinguished name or the GUID of the mailbox which has been deleted. To show the values of the DisplayName, DN, and the properties of MailboxGUID of the deleted mailbox, the user has to execute Get-MailboxStatistics command.

For example, if you want to display the information for all the deleted, disabled or disconnected mailboxes, you have to execute the following command:

Get-MailboxDatabase | Get-MailboxStatistics | Where {$_.DisconnectReason -eq "Disabled"} | fl DisplayName,MailboxGuid,LegacyDN,Database

The following syntax shows the example to restore the deleted mailbox:

New-MailboxRequest -SourceStoreMailbox e448412-21-frzc123-4qwr4 -SourceDatabase MBXDB02 -TargetMailbox "Gabriala Kim" -AllowLegacyDNMismatch

This cmdlet will help you to restore deleted mailbox to the target mailbox. Here, the deleted mailbox which was located on the MBXDB01 mailbox is recognized by the ‘SourceStoreMailbox’. The ‘AllowLegacyDNMismatch’ helps to restore the source mailbox to the different mailbox. The mailbox should be the one which does not have the same legacy DN value.

Tips to Remember While Using Manual Methods to Restore Disconnected Mailbox in Exchange

There are some points which you have to keep in mind while using the above-mentioned process. The points are as follows:

• Check that if the disconnected mailbox which you want to restore is available in the mailbox database or not.
• The user should have the permissions to carry out the restore process.
• Verify that the mailbox is not soft deleted.

There are some advantages of using the manual procedure such as it is completely free of cost and are genuine as they are suggested by many experts. But, there are disadvantages of using these methods are that the users should have adequate knowledge to execute the commands. Moreover, the procedure to enable disabled Exchange mailbox is so lengthy and time-consuming as well as complex that the novice users may lose their crucial data during the process.

Restore Disconnected Mailbox in Exchange 2016, 2013, 2010 Using Automated Solution

Exchange Recovery Tool supports the offline/dismounted private and public Exchange database file. It support various Exchange database mailboxes such as: disconnected, legacy, users, shared, archive. You can easily export the Exchange disconnected mailboxes directly to Live Exchange Server 2016 and various other versions.

This utility helps users to recover Exchange mailbox and EDB file from corruption by using the scan mode option i.e. (Quick and Advance scan). For minimal corrupted Exchange database file select the quick scan and for severely damaged .edb file click on advance scan option.

User can recover and restore deleted mailbox in Exchange 2013/2016 by using the advance scanning option. This scan mode easily recover purged Exchange mailboxes and data items from loaded EDB file and export it into Live Exchange Server, Office 365 and multiple file formats.

The software allows you to move Exchange database to PST, MBOX, PDF, EML, HTML, MSG format in a simplified way. It auto-create an export report which saves the success and fail count of export Exchange data in csv file format.

Key Features Of Automated Software

1. Support Exchange EDB and STM file
2. Preview MS Exchange mailbox items: mails, tasks, notes, journals, contacts, calendars
3. Maintain original folder structure and keep metadata
4. Option to remove encryption (SMIME/OpenPGP) mailboxes in bulk
5. Date and categories filter option export selective Exchange data
6. Convert Exchange EDB to PDF and other file formats with no data loss
7. Compatible with all Windows OS, MS Exchange Server, and Microsoft Outlook versions

Stepswise Working to Restore Disconnected Mailbox In Exchange 2016/2013/2010

Step 1: Download the professional software in your system, Install and Launch it

Step 2: Click on Add file button > Load the offline Microsoft EDB file > Click on Add button

Step 3: Preview the disconnected mailboxes > Click export

Step 4: Select all Exchange disconnected mailboxes > Click on Live Exchange Server > Select the advance settings

Step 5: Insert the Exchange credentials > Select the Exchange Server versions > Click on the save button

Step 6: Click on enter destination mailbox radio button > Click on the next button

Step 7: The Exchange mailboxes is being validated > Click on the export button

Finally, the disconnected Exchange mailboxes is successfully exported to the selected Exchange server version

Conclusion

After reading the above article, the users now have multiple ways to restore disconnected mailbox in Exchange 2016, 2013, 2010. Users can use any of the methods which fit their requirements. Although, the benefits offered by the automated solution makes the process to enable disabled mailboxes really simple and effective.