SUMMARY

How to recover configuration data if a system corruption occurs or if the configuration is accidentally deleted.

DETAIL

There are three approaches that can be taken to recover MailEnable's configuration data. The majority of MailEnable's configuration data (and messaging data) is stored in tab delimited files. It is worth noting that MailEnable files can be recovered with "UnDelete" utilities, although this is not likely to be necessary because MailEnable stores multiple archives. Because the files are in a text file format and are relatively small, it is likely that the files could be recovered. However, if the system is down, to get running quickly, the MERECOVER utility is the fastest and most effective option (Option 4). If using a current release of MailEnable, the SAV backup is also effective (and should be considered before using MERECOVER).

There are several tab delimited files that are important in maintaining MailEnable's configuration.

These are outlined as follows:

C:\Program Files\Mail Enable\Config\ADDRESS-MAP.TAB
C:\Program Files\Mail Enable\Config\AUTH.TAB
C:\Program Files\Mail Enable\Config\Postoffice.tab
C:\Program Files\Mail Enable\Config\DOMAIN.TAB
C:\Program Files\Mail Enable\Config\Postoffices\ Postoffice \MAILBOX.TAB

1. The MailEnable backup utility will save these files under the backup directory. Copy any corrupted (TAB) delimited configuration files into the new environment. Of course, it is unusual to have a backup at the time something goes wrong. These files are simply text files, so it is possible to open them in Notepad to view their contents. Usually, the file with the largest size on the system in the one that should be used. The role and format of these files is explained in the System Manual - see: http://www.mailenable.com/support/Mail%20Enable%20System%20Manual.pdf

2. MailEnable saves temporary backups of these files as .BAK files in the same directory as the .TAB files themselves. Rename the .BAK file as a .TAB file and use the data stored in this file. The unfortunate thing about .BAK files is that they are overwritten with every configuration change. Hence, if any additional changes were made to the system since the .TAB file became corrupted the .BAK file is also likely to be corrupted.

3. Recent versions of MailEnable save an additional version of this file with a .SAV extension. The .SAV version of this file contains a version of the configuration file that has the most amount of configuration entries inclusive. Hence, this file should contain all configuration information (including any account information that may have recently been deleted).

4. Use the MErecover utility to re-build mailboxes and address map files from the message store. It will then be necessary to rename the appropriate .REC files it produces as .TAB files. It is not necessary to replace all of the .REC files as .TAB files. Only replace those files that were corrupted.

MORE INFORMATION

How to backup and restore MailEnable configuration and user Data: http://www.mailenable.com/kb/content/article.asp?ID=ME020024

How to recover a corrupt configuration of MailEnable: http://www.mailenable.com/kb/content/article.asp?ID=ME020069

What content can be purged to increase the available hard disk space?: http://www.mailenable.com/kb/content/article.asp?ID=ME020341