restoring e-mail

Can only be done if you specifically backed the server up with a product that allows 'brick level' backups. Such as Arcserve or Veritas, these products will allow you to backup a mailbox from the server, you can then restore just that mailbox or a message contained in that mailbox - if thi swas used then check with the vendor documentation to see how to properly restore just a message.

If you have not used these products or are using the NT backup utility. Than your only option is to restorethe data to a server which is a non-production system. Do not restore over your current system otherwise you will lose more than a couple of messages.

For future mishaps, you may wish to implement deleted item retention, by default this is not enabled. From Exchange admin, open the properties to the Pirvate Information store on the server, you can set the number of days for Deleted Item Retention. Typically set this for 7 - 14 days (note: using this will increase the size of the private store). It will give your users the ability to recover deleted items with-in this window.

Probably clear as mud. But hope it helps.

Good luck.

Rick_Platt@hotmail.com

Before going crazy, on the users system, highlight the deleted items folder.

Then go to tools/drop down the menu and look for recover deleted items.

As long as it was done recently, you should be able to recover it.

If you are backing up your servers with veritas, get the exchange add-on. It's like $400, but it is made for this scenario. Word of caution, only back up mailboxes, don;t back up the information store. Use the native backup on the machine to perform those backups, then back up that backup.