An Exchange Server 2007 or 2010 user mailbox that has been deleted may not appear in the disconnected mailbox list for the server on which it was previously held.
This can happen when the mailbox has not been deleted using the Disable or Remove commands in the Exchange Management Console. For example, if a mailbox was deleted using the Exchange 2003 management tools then it will not appear in disconnected mailboxes.
Deleting Exchange 2007/2010 mailboxes with Exchange 2003 tools - please don't!
When mailboxes are deleted incorrectly the Exchange 2007/2010 mailbox server doesn’t process them correctly, and as a result they do not end up in the disconnected mailbox list.
However you can fix this problem with the Clean-MailboxDatabase command. Simply launch the Exchange Management Shell and run the command against the database that the user’s mailbox was on.
Clean-MailboxDatabase "EX2010MB\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database"
Refresh the disconnected mailboxes view for that mailbox server. The mailbox should now appear correctly and can be reconnected if necessary.
About Paul Cunningham
After following your steps above, I also had to use the “Connect to Server…” Action on the Disconnected Mailbox menu to connect to my server and I was then able to see the disconnected mailboxes.
Thank you Paul, Saved my ass!
Hi Paul, thanks for sharing this information. It seems that no matter what way I run this cmdlet, I get an error that the ‘object could not be found on domain controller . This just makes no sense, any experience coping with this error?
I assume what you’re saying is you’re running…
Clean-MailboxDatabase somedatabase
…and its telling you that “somedatabase” could not be found?
Whatever you use in place of “somedatabase” has to be a database name that Exchange can locate. If you run Get-MailboxDatabase it will show you valid database names.
For Exchange 2007, if running on the local server, you should be able to just run…
Clean-MailboxDatabase “Database Name”
From a remote server or mgmt station I think you would need to use
Clean-MailboxDatabase “ServerName\Database Name”
For Exchange 2010 whether local or not it should just be…
Clean-MailboxDatabase “Database Name”
Thank you for this post. This really made my life happier…
I run this command and nothing appears in my disconnected mailbox after refreshing it, what else can i try?