When an archive store is damaged (typically due to power issues or third party antivirus interaction), the following steps can be used to extract the messages from the problematic archive to your local hard drive and then re-archive the old data into your current installation.
Note: unless there is a specific reason you want to create an exported copy of the emails in the archive store, you may prefer to merge the contents of the problematic archive store directly into a new archive store using the merge operation described in this article instead.
MailStore Version 10 and above (message extraction with encryption key)
Before we begin we need to make will make a few assumptions here:
MailStore is installed at C:\Program Files (x86)\deepinvent\MailStore Server
You have a directory called C:\EML that contains enough space to hold all of your recovered email. The disk must have sufficient free space. Calculate it with the sevenfold size of the archive storage directory [C:\MailArchive\DefaultFileGroup”]. As MailStore compresses and deduplicates messages, this process will create uncompressed message files.
The paths used do not need to be on C:\ and you can use mapped drive letters if needed. Adjust the instructions as needed based on your folder paths:
- Detach the defective archive store from MailStore by following this article
- Create a new Storage Location and mark it as active.
- Shut down the MailStore Service.
- Create the C:\EMLfolder if it doesn’t already exist.
- Open a Windows Command Prompt and enter the following command:
“C:\Program Files (x86)\deepinvent\MailStore Server\MailStoreServer_x86.exe” /recover /inputDir=”directory_path_of_broken_archive_store” /outputDir=”C:\EML” /keyFile=”path_to_broken_archive_store_key_file”
Note: This may take a significant amount of time, and will export all of your archived mail. - Start the MailStore Server service.
- Login to MailStore Client
- Go to “Archive E-mail” -> Click on “E-mail Files” -> “EML and MSG Files” -> “MailStore Export” – Archive from C:\EML, leaving “Include Subfolders” and “Read MailStore Headers” enabled.
This should re-archive mail into the new Storage Location created in step #2.
MailStore Version 9 or earlier (message extraction with no encryption key)
Before we begin we need to make will make a few assumptions here:
MailStore is installed at C:\Program Files (x86)\deepinvent\MailStore Server
You have a directory called C:\EML that contains enough space to hold all of your recovered email. The disk must have sufficient free space. Calculate it with the sevenfold size of the archive storage directory [C:\MailArchive\DefaultFileGroup”]. As MailStore compresses and deduplicates messages, this process will create uncompressed message files.
The paths used do not need to be on C:\ and you can use mapped drive letters if needed. Adjust the instructions as needed based on your folder paths:
- Detach the defective archive store from MailStore by following this article
- Create a new Storage Location and mark it as active.
- Shut down the MailStore Service.
- Create the C:\EML folder if it doesn’t already exist.
- Open an elevated Windows Command Prompt and enter the following command:
“C:\Program Files (x86)\deepinvent\MailStore Server\MailStoreServer_x86.exe” /recover inputDir=”C:\MailArchive\DefaultFileGroup” /outputDir=”C:\EML”
Note: This may take a significant amount of time, and will export all of your archived mail. - Start the MailStore Server service.
- Login to MailStore Client.
- Go to “Archive E-mail” -> Click on “E-mail Files” -> “EML and MSG Files” -> “MailStore Export” – Archive from C:\EML, leaving “Include Subfolders” and “Read MailStore Headers” enabled.
This should re-archive mail into the new Storage Location created in step #2.
